It’s been such a great weekend; weather in the 80’s and 90’s, we’ve been home for the long Labor Day weekend, enjoying ourselves, and went out to eat and to a movie last night.  On our way home from a nice evening,  I saw them!  As we drove into our driveway and the headlights reached their long arms out over the front lawn, we see a fawn jump up off the grass.  Next momma gets up from her resting place further up the canal bank and then another (we can’t quite make out whether it’s fawn #2 or another doe) stretches its legs as we’ve disturbed their resting place for the night.  I absolutely love living in the country and being able to see the wildlife in our everyday lives.

This morning we enjoyed a lazy launch into our day.  Coffee on the deck, a bit of catching up from a long, busy week, and then a long, warm shower.  I opened the blinds in our bathroom only to discover that quite a number of our newly landscaped plants had been systematically given a “haircut” during the night!  Now I’m mad!  We’ve spent the better part of the last two years and a goodly amount of money trying to make our sagebrush surroundings look like something closer to a Good Housekeeping cover.  We’ve felt such a sense of accomplishment as the yard went from very rough to dug up to water lines in to covered up again to lawn planted to lawn sputterings (we really wondered if it would ever fill in last summer) to shrub plantings last fall to more planting this spring and finally, bark covering this summer.  We’ve stood back and looked at it with awe that we actually got this job finished and it actually looks like something presentable.  That is, until the “haircuts” last night!

I love deer.  I loved Bambi as a child and cried when my dad (the avid hunter that he was) made noise about shooting Bambi for supper.  While my husband has been a hunter and I actually spent a couple of years bow-hunting too (the deer were very safe when I was in the woods!), I still love to see deer out in the wild.  When we go for a drive into the countryside, I’m often the first one to spot a deer because I’m always looking for them.  I love to see their sleek bodies prancing gently along as they head for cover after being discovered in the forests.  I’ve actually loved seeing them here at our place these past six years.  One morning while my parents were visiting, my mom opened up the curtains in their bedroom and ended up about one foot away from a doe who had bedded down under the deck for the night and was just stretching when she noticed the curtains open up!  I don’t know who was more surprised, mom or the doe!  Yep, I’ve loved that we get to see wildlife here at the place.  Until now.

When you’ve spent your blood, sweat, and tears on a project, there’s something quite disconcerting about finding it wiped out in a single night’s time.  I can forgive the frosts that come early here on the high desert.  I can forgive the mistakes we make with our outside landscape because we’ve never done this before and there are things to be learned.  What I can’t forgive is some cute little fawn who doesn’t know yet what it wants to eat and has to try, no, make that annihilate, every plant it decides might look like dinner to it today!  I can just see it taking it’s sweet little, soft lips to tenderly tug at the flowers of my Johnny Jumpups, roll it around in its mouth for a moment and then realize, “p-tooooo-ey, that doesn’t taste so good.  Hmmm, think I’ll try this piece right next to it.”  It’s these darned juveniles that are plundering my landscape!  Aaarrgghh!  Hmmm, maybe it’s time to take up bow-hunting again!