Deer just want to eat

The other morning, as I often do, I got up early. It was getting close to 5 a.m. and, at my latitude, dawn wasn't far away. But it still was dark in my backyard, at least until my motion-sensitive light flashed on. I walked to my kitchen window. Outside was a doe, scorning grass, munching lilac leaves as though they were the finest caviar, the most exquisite pheasant-under-glass, the best cheeseburger, the world had ever known.

Then, suddenly, the deer quit eating. She looked out into the night, ears alert, then walked toward my fence, took a little run, and hopped it. She disappeared into the dark.

I was reminded of a day or two earlier, when another doe - the same one? - wandered into my front yard in daylight and fed on an overgrown bush beside my front door. Thin branches swayed as she grabbed spring-time leaves. Off to the south, two doors down, another deer fed on grass in another front yard.

My deer, stomach apparently full, glanced at her friend down the street and apparently made a decision. She took off across the road (repeatedly looking both ways) and vanished behind a neighbor's house.

Somehow, I'm beginning to think that deer don't visit my place because of my winning personality.