Deer

When we lived in small Midwestern towns, the deer kept to the cornfields around the own, rarely bothering to visit.

Now that we live in a more urban area, the cornfields are too far away, and the deer eat neighborhood gardens. My neighbor has taken to covering her flowers with sheets each evening at dusk, removing the sheets in the morning. She hopes to protect the plants that way.

This little Bambi-sized fawn



(it's the brown blob in the middle -- an action shot taken quickly through a window didn't do much for photographic clarity) was scampering through our yard at noon. He ran over to his mother, who was looking over the neighbor's now-available-for-eating flowers; he wanted to nurse, it seemed.

The hostas planted by a previous owner of this house have been eaten down to nubs. Who cares? Hosta is common, it's ho-hum. But seeing a fawn nurse, well, that's a treat.