So this past spring, Patrick came home from work and started heading to the shower before dinner.

“You can’t use the shower right now.” I said. “There’s a fawn in it.”

He just smiled and lifted his eyebrows as if to say Really? but accepted it with equanimity. Because it’s just that kind of household. If there is a loose possum, the kids will scoop him up and return him from walkabout. If I tell them to keep the door shut because there are bunnies having exercise time, they’re cool.

The fawn was found by the roadside, bleating over the body of its mother who had been hit by a car. Fawns are often found lying still in the woods and people think they’re orphans. They’re not. Mom is just out foraging, and she’s also keeping her baby safe by not attracting predators’ attention with her own scent. But in this case, the evidence was irrefutable and this little girl needed help.

After initial bottle-feeding when they’re babies, on a special lambs milk based fawn formula, we transport any fawns that come in to our wildlife clinic. The initial feeding is touch and go because their digestive systems are so delicate. A case of the scours can kill them. Then our fawns are raised in a huge mews in the middle of south county woods, with a ten foot high wooden fence all around and a blind through which a rehabber can feed them their bottles (and later their gruel and then later their feed) without being seen. For all that they’re beautiful and gentle when they’re young, it is vital that they not become habituated to humans. The bucks especially, when they mature and go into rut, can be highly dangerous if they approach humans without wariness.

So this little girl graced us briefly before moving on to bigger and better things, and she is being released this fall. When the leaves are blazing red and gold and the fields are brown, she will run free with ten other deer and our fostering will be done.