Ears for Deers

[XLFD]

It took me a couple of months of planning and organization after learning of the new law approving the feeding of wildlife on your own property (see related Ludington Torch article on the law's origin and implementation), but I've finally established a mechanism to feed the local deer population some good old Eastern Mason County corn.  

This reporter took a cheap Halloween cauldron and painted a message (on both sides naturally) telling wildlife that the delectable ears of corn are only for deer.  I know that animals have other things to do with their time than to take up reading English, so I wrote the warning/restriction phonetically for their convenience.  I must also admit, my white paint can didn't have a spell-checker either so I may have spelt 'deers' wrong-- but again the reading skills of your average deer and squirrel are generally lacking.

I then took the sturdy string that binds my wood and tied it to the plastic cauldron's handle and to a nearby tree limb in my front yard so that the deer ear bowl would be at the perfect height for their eating habits.  Lastly, I filled the bottom of the cauldron's inside with the corn husks and its top with corn ears, making sure to keep the total organic material under the legal limit, two gallons. 

My residence is not on the outer fringes of Ludington; in fact it's technically two blocks from the downtown, but I still get to see deer in the area, a group of five were milling across the street after having come from the north.  Above you can see at least three of them, and that same sign advertising inexpensive firewood that you saw in the first picture.

Some of you will recall that the Ludington City Council passed wildlife feeding ordinances in 2023 and earlier this spring, laws that restricted what you could do on your own property, ostensibly for the common good of protecting your neighbors garden and floral landscaping from marauding hordes of cervidae (FYI, that's the scientific and Latin name for deer).  You cannot have local laws in direct conflict with state laws (codified in the snippet above), so these costly efforts of taking away your property rights are no longer enforceable.  Sorry, not sorry, Mr. Code Enforcer.

A point of empathy towards my fellow Ludingtonians who fought for getting laws to prohibit your neighbors from the quiet enjoyment of their property, who petitioned city leaders in order to get expensive deer culling operations began in Ludington paid for by a majority of us who didn't want it or felt it necessary, and subsequently almost got one of your fellow citizens shot when they failed to follow basic safety rules.  Our city council hasn't prohibited you from protecting your prize hostas and your succulent backyard tomato crop from trespassing deer in the multiple ways you can find online.

You need to adjust to the forces of nature rather than the other way around; be one with the nature you often spend a lot of money to visit but that can be found in the comfort of your own backyard.  If seeing a deer in your city street is worse than seeing that same deer pop in front of your car while you're going down Jebavy Road at 55+ mph, you may want to reassess your values.