The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

When mowing this year, Tom intentionally left beds of deer grass around to see if it would bring deer closer to the house. Yesterday evening while on the deck, we watched a doe come cautiously up to a patch not far from the end of the house and munch away. She eventually noticed us and the cat, who was scratching noisily on a deck post, but it didn't scare her away. We went in before she disappeared. It's a good thing.

We have been battling raccoons -- well, attacking the raccoons. I am not sure they are fighting back so much as just staring at us and waddling off. For some reason this year they discovered the bird feeders. I think the trees Tom planted near the feeders to provide shelter for the birds are now big enough to enable the raccoons to climb up and get over into the feeders. We are using a diverse strategy and the raccoons seem unfazed. On the other hand, they did not show up (or we did not see them) last night. So maybe we are making progress. Raccoons are cute but still a bad thing.

Even better, this morning from the kitchen window we watched a doe nursing a fawn in the back yard.


Mama pricked up her ears and caught sight of us pretty quickly, but she waited until Bambi took a break before heading off into the woods. The fawn looked around for a minute and then went chasing off after her.

And that was truly a beautiful thing.