Fighting the Deer

The cool weather has given the impression that we’re behind last year’s planting schedule, but I was pleasantly surprised when I checked our progress against last year’s records. We’re actually only a day or so off from last year. Somehow, the cold, bitter wind that refuses to go back to Canada has the disconcerting effect of making a farmer feel like he’s in the wrong dream wearing mismatched socks and no pants while the potatoes refuse to stay in the row where they’re planted. I just wish I could wake up to a solid spring. Of course, I have to remind myself that this is normal and the past four years were the anomalies. Added to my reconditioning of what spring should be like is the surreal aspect of daily activity which invariably includes a run in with the local fauna. (I know, you’re getting sick of reading about the onslaught of wild animals that have appropriated our farm, but I’m starting to feel like an extra in a Dr. Doolittle movie.) It’s bad enough that I’ve had to spend an inordinate part of my day relocating these creatures (three raccoons and two possums in the past week alone), but yesterday I was mugged at hoof point by a herd of juvenal deer who stole my Giant customer discount card and forced me to reveal all my internet passwords. Then to add insult to injury, two of them held me down while the rest nibbled the lettuce I’d just planted to the ground. I haven’t been so humiliated since Johnny McCall (three years my junior) beat the crap out of me on the baseball field because I miraculously caught a line drive at short stop that rightfully should have drilled a hole through my head. Honest, all I was trying to do was protect my face with the glove. I should have known then, while my head was being pummeled into second base, that I’d be spending the rest of my life at the mercy of young bucks trying to re-appropriate unintended glory.