Shopping is certainly at the top of everyone’s to-do list with the holidays quickly coming. And this mother deer is evidently not an exception either.
Jones was working in the shop this week when, out of the blue, a wild doe appeared in the doorway. Moments later, as Jones looked on in astonishment, the curious deer actually strolled inside as if she were just another customer perusing the shelves.
“It was hilarious,” Jones told The Dodo. “She was looking at the sunglasses and the chips. I was laughing so hard.”
This deer isn’t a total stranger to Jones. She is the matriarch of a family known to live in the area, occasionally passing through the grounds to a nearby field where they graze. Never before, however, had the deer entered a building (nor had she shown any interest in shopping, for that matter).
Assuming the deer had simply lost her way, Jones decided to escort her outside, luring her back to the field with a peanut bar in hand.
And that was that — or so Jones thought.
She was wrong.
About 30 minutes later, the deer reappeared with her entire family, according to Jones. “I go outside to discover her there while I’m taking inventory in the office. This time, she brought her twins along with a young buck that she had taken in as her own.”
Kids gathered at the door to wait. Jones made it clear.
“They were just looking in the doorway like, ‘Can we come in too?’ I said, ‘No,’” Jones recalled. “It was so funny.”
Nobody knows why the deer was so interested in the store that day (but rumor of gifts might have played a part). Jones, however, didn’t want to welcome them too warmly because they were wild creatures.
She then snatched up another peanut bar and enticed the mother and her children back to the field. Jones often forbids feeding animals, but she made the decision to do so in order to acknowledge their cooperation.
Jones then clapped her hands together to send the deer scurrying back into the nearby woodland. As they scampered away, she said, “Take your kids home.”
Most of the time, it’s customers visiting the shop who should feel satisfied that they have gained something special. But this time, thanks to those random visitors, it was the storekeeper herself.
“It was just a lovely thing to see,” Jones said. “The population of wildlife here is just astounding. We have mountain lions, bighorn sheep, deer, raccoons — you name it. They have to fend for themselves. That’s nature. But I think they’re all wonderful.”
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