Who put all this Nature in my Nature?!?
Ask any native Coloradan, and they’ll tell you: The Californians have arrived…and they’re in for a big shock. It’s a trend that’s been going on for some time now: The blue-state Millennials—many of whom are entering their late 20s and early 30s—are realizing that their urban Utopias are actually too crowded, expensive, and overbearingly nanny-stated to raise families in. They’re picking up and relocating to the country to live out their pastoral dream of life among Nature. Maybe they’ll plant a little truck garden; maybe they’ll raise chickens. And won’t it be wonderful to see all those beautiful animals and live in kum-ba-yah peace with them? Mmmnotsomuch. Here are three critters that are going to stop being cute to them in about a year.
1-Whitetail Deer

“Look, kids! It’s a deer! Right here in our front yard!” That’s what it will sound like the first dozen times or so. It’s pretty common for city dwellers to think of deer as “endangered,” because most city dwellers just don’t see them often, and they have this vague idea that everything “natural” is being threatened by global warming or Trump voters or whatever the latest bugaboo is.
Then Millennial Mom and Hipster Dad are going to start noticing something: Those deer are freaking everywhere. And, just like my stripper ex-girlfriend, their beauty is matched only by their stupidity. They will literally launch themselves at your moving vehicle with suicidal abandon, and there’s kind of nothing you can do about it but get your wallet handy to cover all those insurance copays.
Oh, and that little vegetable garden that was going to be your farm-to-table locavore heaven? The deer ate it. All of it. You can replant if you want—the deer will eat that, too. And when you’ve given up on your garden, their next move is to strip the trees of vegetation for several feet up the trunk, destroying the habitat for those songbirds you wanted to spot.
Give it one year, and Millennial Mom and Hipster Dad are going to be snarling, “Screw Bambi. Bambi’s got it coming.”
2-Coyotes

It’s easy to see why a city-dwelling transplant to the country might initially be delighted to hear the hypnotic, chilling song of coyotes howling at night. Plus, they really look like dogs—and that’s because many of them have a lot of feral dog ancestry. What many urbanites don’t get is that coyotes are, like whitetail deer, common as dirt. And if you live east of the Mississippi, those ‘yotes aren’t…entirely coyotes. Not anymore, anyway. As the Western coyote population spread, it went north before it went east. In that time, they interbred not just with feral domestic dogs, but with both red and gray wolves. This has helped those coyotes become much larger and more aggressive than their Western cousins.
They’re also hungry. And coyotes are opportunistic eaters that can and will go after your vegetable garden as well as your trash, your egg-laying chickens, any other livestock you have (including much larger animals like cattle and goats), and your pets. Attacks on humans are rare, but they do happen…and if they’re going to attack a human, they tend to go after the smaller ones among us.
Give it a year, and Millennial Mom and Hipster Dad just might have a scoped rimfire rifle set up right near their back door, in case the coyotes come calling.
3-Prairie Dogs

Oh, yes, prairie dogs are cute. They’re like everything that’s cute about a squirrel multiplied by everything that’s cute about a guinea pig. And what Millennial Mom and Hipster Dad are about to discover is that those adorable little bastards turn everything they contact into a blasted, lifeless moonscape like some kind of hellish reverse Midas touch. As they construct their elaborate, cute little prairie-dog burrows, they eat everything they see from the roots up. And, much like the waves of blue-state transplants, once they’ve turned their home into an unlivable sh*tpit, they move on to some fertile new place and set about destroying it.
Of course, Nature abhors a vacuum and the barren abandoned prairie-dog towns will eventually sprout with new vegetation. Too bad that new vegetation is concealing the presence of the deep, narrow holes in the ground…making a perfect opportunity to step in one and break a leg.
Here’s another fun fact about the prairie dog: They carry a disease called Yersinia pestis. Also known as the Bubonic Plague. Yes, THAT plague; the one that killed about a third of the European population in the Middle Ages. So when Fido goes a-roaming and catches himself a very, very cute little prairie dog, he might be bringing home the Black Plague in addition to that ashamed poo-eating grin all dogs get when they know they’ve been naughty. Now, these days, it’s very treatable—if, that is, your doctors are able to figure out what you have.
Give it a year, and Millennial Mom and Hipster Dad will be cursing the dogs right along with the ranchers and farmers that are their new neighbors.

Trace, a proud Special Farces who goes commando, is dedicated to pubic service. Although he’s a legend among YouTube commenters, he actually began life as a humble dingleberry farmer. Now, no subject is too moist or sensitive for his incisive odor and scintillating lymph nodes.
Dengar says
Great content! Would be great if you had some “share” buttons, so I could send this to my Millennial relates of Fbook, etc.
David says
Hello, there are indeed “share” buttons on our article pages. There is a social media share bar that is usually on the left side of the page that pops out when you scroll downward. On mobile it sometimes pops up at the bottom of your screen. Thank you!
Rhonda says
My fellow Millenials have NO idea the constant war it is to raise a garden out in the country. I’m a farm girl with a full arsenal and those bastard white tails still eat every green bean I attempt. EVERY SINGLE ONE!
I’ll proudly claim to be a Millenial any day, but G.D. some of the other yahoos in my generation make me want to slap somebody!
Walt says
Or the possoms that climb into the attic, the ac ventilation and die. With her babies, somewhere in all the ducts… in the summer…
Bruce Clark says
Why you might ask do so many people have so much contempt for millennials, while their parents the genXers get a free ride on all the blame? I blame the genXers right along with the millennials. After all it was the genXers who raised the unmotivated entitled little shits. Not all of them are all that bad, I know many millennials that were raised outside of the Metropolitan areas in this country, raised by good people who did an excellent job and raised good citizens. But the majority are useless fools that wouldn’t to good advice if you offered it. You forgot to mention how dangerous a large Whitetail Buck is at certain times a year can be. It’s time for a wake up call, and it ain’t going to be pretty.
Kevin Jones says
Yep all true. Love the comments.
You forgot the skunk that sprayed the dog that just ran into your house and now you can’t breathe in your own house. Yep so far it has happened twice to me. But you will never see me living with the edits in the city. They have not clue about country life.
Capn Jack says
Funny, but true…
My pacifist son-in-law has borrowed one of my CO2 pellet rifles to protect their, “Petting Zoo”.
Next it will be a .22, or shotgun.
Mary J Dameron says
You left off rabbits, which will beat the deer to your garden; deer only get what’s left over.
Gary says
Yup, nothing like a deer in the grill of your BMW or chewing on you $25,000 landscape job to realize life isn’t a Disney cartoon.
John says
It’s no wonder to me at this point why so many Colorado inhabitants choose to stay HIGH. It’s so NATURAL. 😂
Phil in TX says
Let’s see……. You left out the feral hogs (they tear up everything), the Armadillos (they dig burrows and tear up the yard), the Raccoons, the Possums and squirrels that will all end up in your attic at some point, the mice and rats that will inevitably get into your house and let’s not forget all of the bugs!
Phil in TX
Trace Munson says
And the armadillos carry leprosy, while we’re on the subject of medieval afflictions…
Jim Turic says
Funny as hell and true as grass is green, the sky is blue, and the sun comes up in the mornin’.