Mamaaaa

So the best thing ever happened yesterday. My friend Candy and I were walking out at Berry. If you are not a local reader, Berry College is heralded as the world's largest campus because of it's almost 30,000 acres.  It is also known as a sort of Mecca for deer and we stumbled upon a little deer mama which apparently had just given birth to this little bundle of yummy:

Now I am not having any more children, but OH MY GOODNESS this little one made me and Candy both really want to take it home and put a sweater on it and bottle feed it forever and ever.

Our appearance startled the Mama enough that she took off (SORRY!!) and since we were the only ones around the little one started following us. Now we are pretty sure this is bad so we are going "no honey don't come this way,  follow your mama, nononononono" while we envision a lifetime of shunning from the others in the deer community.  If you have ever had a little deer JUST BORN look at you and go MAAAA, you will find yourself thinking, "Well maybe if we fence in the yard it would be okay."  But it's really not okay - or at least that's what the experts say.

We couldn't just LEAVE it there so we nervously tried to get it to follow us to where the other deer appeared to have gone, but IT IS THE WORLD'S LARGEST CAMPUS.  His/her little spindly legs were having trouble keeping up so we finally just sat and hoped his mama would hear his little "meeps" and come back.  Of course, she's not coming back with us there so after a phone call to Ms. Joan at the Berry Elementary school (she is practically an expert on all things wildlife because she takes in any little critter [GOATS! POSSUM!!] that comes her way and even had a young chicken that she kept tied to her desk at one point).  Her advice was in two parts:  First, you can't take it home (ugh).  And second, you have to run away from it.

Now is there anything more contradictory than telling me to run away from some little helpless baby who now thinks Candy is it's new mama?  It's like when you have to drive your infant to get her shots.  You know it will prevent them from contracting Polio but it's still pretty confusing and painful for the baby. So even though I hate running, we did go ahead and sprint away from our little Bambi.

The deer expert called me back from Berry yesterday (I had left him a frantic message first before calling Ms. Joan).  First question, "Did you take it home?" Just kidding. He says this happens all the time. He's even had the infants try to suck on his shirt. He assured me that our little one was just fine and that mama always comes back.

So there you go - more proof that any old ordinary activity can turn into an extraordinary event.