Oh, Deer!

The gentleman on the right (his burgeoning antlers are just visible) arrived with seven of his ladies at sundown last evening.  They declined a group photo.  Even though I cuss them for eating what flowers I might get to grow, I never get over the thrill of seeing deer on the property.  I'll take living, breathing yard art any day.

There is something very "Little House on the Prairie" about working in the garden.  The plot is out on the point, one of the few spots where there are no trees, and the land drops away to the west.  Any breeze at all sings through the deer fencing and the sense of isolation is increased.  Frank and Pearl played hide-and-seek among the barrels yesterday as I weeded and dug to get two ready for planting.  Bessie was content to nap in whatever shade I was providing.  That darned Frank...I had no more than finished one tub when he literally pushed past me to relieve himself in the newly turned dirt, as if he'd been crossing his legs while waiting.  Little peeper frogs, bright green with copper stripes, frantically stayed ahead of the hoe, finally moving to other barrels for safety.  When I was helping my mother garden as a kid in southern California, we would uncover earth babies, aka potato bugs.  Nowhere else I've lived have I come across these burrowing insects, until we moved here.  A couple turned up yesterday.  Mother loved to garden.  After she moved into apartments, I would call her and say, "Want to root around in the dirt today?," and she'd jump at the opportunity.  We'd go to the nursery, then dig and plant to our hearts' content.  That was our version of a Girls' Day Out.  Two barrels is about the extent of my efforts for a day now, but it's funny...I'm never as achy or tired when doing something I want to do as opposed to something I have to do.  That's a good thing, because there are plenty more barrels out there.