The buffet is spread and Bambi and her friends are ready to party.
The trouble is, they’re coming to a garden party…in our garden…full of our vegetables.
While inspecting our veggie patch the other day, I discovered that a few pepper plants had been nibbled off. The crime scene was dotted with fresh deer prints.
I thought this might happen, which is one reason I was unsure about planting vegetables this year. I wasn’t terribly confident we could pull off this big garden thing yet. We are, after all, just getting our country legs under us.
My husband, however, was determined to grow stuff.
“I told myself that when we moved out here, I’d put in a garden,” farmer Joe said.
“Well, can’t you just un-tell yourself now?” I asked.
(Women are, I think, much better at these internal, changing-our-mind conversations than men are.)
Joe would not be deterred, so he commenced planting all kinds of stuff. A veritable salad bar, but perhaps one doomed to be plundered by a bunch of stealthy, thieving deer.
Oh sure, those deer are cute, but they’re out to eat my green beans, and that ticks me off.
I sense them out there in the woods right now, tying napkins around their necks and waiting to turn our garden into a plot of plant nubs.
This isn’t my first bad dance with Bambi. At our previous house, commando deer munched off every flower bloom in my yard one night. Some of the flowers were so close to the front door that I wondered if those brazen critters also lounged around on our porch swing for awhile. Maybe even smoked a few cigars.
When we planted our garden out here, we decided not to try any of the many sane and insane deer deterrent ideas out there. We thought we’d just see what happened this first year.
But our decapitated pepper plants have us singing a different tune now. The honor system is obviously not working.
After doing a little research, we learned that spreading human hair around the edges of a garden seems to be a popular solution to the deer problem. Trouble is, we don’t have much spare hair around our house right now.
One internet site included instructions on how to build a deer-scaring gizmo that involves an electric drill, a golf ball and a metal pan. Bang, bang, bang … all day and all night.
Ummm, no thanks.
But we’re not idly standing by anymore while these deer have their way with our veggies. After the pepper incident, we are ready to throw down. Bring it on, Bambi.
But, my deer, you better jump high because—ha!—we have now put up a fence that packs a wallop—an electrical wallop, to be specific. We may never grow enough vegetables to offset the cost, but that’s irrelevant. It’s about winning the battle.
It occurs to me that this whole deer-in-the-garden thing is actually a pretty good metaphor for an infinitely more important battle raging in our world.
Many lives are being ruthlessly plundered by a stealthy predator, an enemy the Bible says is out to “steal, kill and destroy” (see John 10:10). If the Bible is true, then Satan is real and he’s constantly “seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
But there is also One who is “mighty to save” (Zephaniah 3:17) and is willing and able to rescue all who call upon Him. His name is Jesus.
There is an invisible, spiritual battle raging in our world, and we are the prize. Jesus will win the war, but each of us has to choose a side. He says we’re either with Him or against Him (Matthew 12:30).
I choose Jesus.