April:
May:
June:
July:
Deer Me July 17, 2010
I went for a run a couple of weeks ago, and as I was coming around a curve I met a doe and two fawns. The doe darted across the road and into the timber, but the fawns seemed to be more interested in playing tag. They’d run ahead a little, duck into the timber and pop up behind me. At one point, one of them got close enough that it was almost touching me. I’ve got a rather healthy fear of being between anything and its mother, so I sort of yipped (I’d like to pretend it was some sort of formidable noise. It wasn’t.) and we went skittering off in different directions. Although both fawns continued jumping in and out of the corn and the trees, they stayed pretty clear of me after that.
Yesterday morning I went for a bike ride in the same area and again saw a doe and two fawns. I’m assuming it’s the same group, but I really don’t know. It’s not like they were wearing name tags. They were running next to the road, through a bean field. Even on a bicycle, I couldn’t possibly have kept up with them.
You know with the running and the bike riding, I sound rather athletic. I’m not. It’s actually more shuffling than running. And any time I’m riding the bike, I have a continous Wicked Witch of the West/Peewee Herman theme song running through my head. Which is why I’m generally laughing my head off for no apparent reason as I go down the road. It’s a good thing there isn’t much traffic other than the deer.
$*&#% Raccoons July 13, 2010
Those damn raccoons. Seriously. It’s not bad enough that they pull down the husks on the sweet corn to see if it’s ready. ‘Cause even if they don’t eat it, I’m not interested in raccoon rejected corn that’s now been exposed to every bug in the neighborhood.
Sometimes they get partway through before thinking, “Meh. Not that great.” Then they move on to the next ear, hoping it’s got a better raccoon approved flavor, leaving the half eaten ear to taunt me with what could have been.
Sometimes they find an ear that’s just about perfect. And they shred the hell out of it in sheer excitement. Then they apparently put out the word to any bug not already busy with wrecking the rest of our garden.
I’m not sure what else they do, it certainly SOUNDS like they’re murdering each other right underneath our windows. I suspect that if we set up a webcam we might end up with some really spectacular raccoon porn. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Plane Speaking July 12, 2010
They’ve been spraying corn for the last couple of days via airplane. The corn is too tall to use the sprayer, and this is the time to get the fungicide on.
Yesterday it was RIGHT over the house. As in ‘He’s so low I can’t believe he missed the power lines.” I’d heard him spraying the neighbor’s field earlier, but didn’t realize we were next on the list. I jumped, the cat jumped, the windows rattled and things fell off shelves. Not what you’d expect at 10:30 on a quiet Sunday morning.
Today they’re spraying again, and we’ve got trucks here emptying the bins. Weeks go by without anyone here, but today looks like a hive of activity. If I were a nice sister, I’d make cookies for the people working in the bins. It’d be a little hard to get them up to the pilot. Well actually, I suppose he could stick his hand out the window and I could slap the cookies in as he flew by. Did I mention he’s flying REALLY low? We’ll see what happens.
Farmhouse Fling 
