I had the good fortune to participate in a workshop at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library led by the talented Claudia Ricci.  What a relief to leave behind research and early twentieth century America for a few hours!

I sit in the summer house at the back of my garden while the red squirrel cuts half-ripe cones from the spruce tree high overhead.  In the distance, I hear the first calls of the geese taking this year’s brood for a practice flight.  The sound brings with it the smell of golden leaves lit by low sunlight.

The plants that surround me are pushing out their last flowers in a rush to make seed before a frost cuts short their leafy lives.  All this beauty underlain with desperate determination – all life writ small.

I hear a rustle in the viburnums.  Suddenly, she’s there, still as a statue.  Only her ears move.  She takes a step, then another, and then behind her are this year’s fawns.

I stay so still, so quiet, and the doe begins to move along the border, delicately snipping flowerheads one by one, thoughtfully masticating.  The fawns are less discriminating, trying plant after plant.

“Deer resistant!” they seem to say.  “Take that, allium, and that, you prickly holly!”

Enough, I think, and sit up straight.  A startled look, a quick retreat, and I am alone again.

Roe-Jan Community Library, http://www.roejanlibrary.org/
Claudia Ricci,PhD., http://mystorylives.blogspot.com/
Deer resistant plants, https://njaes.rutgers.edu/deerresistance/