off the top of my head - August 20th, 2025

The deer chronicles. Oh, and don’t forget the rabbits.

You who follow our travails detailing our spats with deer over the years will likely get it when I report that the deer are winning. They’re smarter – by far – than we are.

Let’s recap. I’ve lived hereabouts all my life and there have always been deer around and about. Growing up, we saw deer from a distance. There was ample habitat and they never – ever – took the occasion to approach yards or gardens. Fast forward seventy-five years and you know the drill. Habitat has been reduced in favor of housing and commerce, yards and gardens have become fair game. In retaliation, we’ve sprayed with all manner of concoctions, we’ve spread milorganite and shredded soap, we’ve surrounded favorite – theirs and ours – plants with battle lines of chicken wire, and we pelted them with BBs. All to pretty much no avail, though Arla has become a crack shot in the process and we’ve boosted the bottom line of the Liquid Fence folks.

We thought the final solution against marauding deer – as you know – would be to erect an eight-foot tall fence around the main home garden. This worked well for months – fingers crossed. We saw deer at fence edge scratching their heads, contemplating the possibility of thwarting our efforts. We were fairly sanguine in our outlook. Wrong move.

Several weeks ago, a deer inside the fence, attacking with relish lilies and hostas, phlox and hydrangeas. We think she was able – by all evidence – to scamper under the fence. Yes, we took action to shore up the boundaries and all was well. For a brief time. Days later, another incursion. Deer had evidently rammed up against the fence, or tried to jump over, we’re not sure. The result, a sagging fence. Demoralized, but not undaunted, we ordered fence extensions to boost the barrier to ten feet. While we await delivery of the reinforcements, our eyes have been on high alert.

Of course, we haven’t been able – or desired to – fence off our property entirely, so deer have had a heyday in unprotected gardens around the house, where all hosta and Solomon seals have been reduced to stubble. We knew that would happen.

And the rabbits. The fence kit came with rolls of 2 ½’ tall hardware cloth that was intended to be installed at the base of the fence and dug into the ground 6” or so to protect against critters – mainly rabbits – that have a tendency to be as destructive as their compatriots the deer. Don’t ask why we’ve put off installing this barrier. Well, actually, there are two reasons – we thought we didn’t have a rabbit problem, and the labor involved seemed odious. The latter observation still stands, but the former is a miscalculation. We – and many gardeners we’ve talked to about it – insist that the rabbit population this year has mushroomed beyond comparison. I guess we’ll be installing that hardware cloth. The infuriating thing about rabbits is that they, unlike deer that eat what they eat, will chomp off a stem of that liatris or agastache and leave it on the ground, unconsumed. Pure meanness? 

We haven’t given up but are about down to our last act of vengeance. Will keep you posted.

Off the top of my head

July 29th, 2025

We lost a friend last night. Fierce winds, lights flickered out at 9:30 p.m. In the morning, surveying damage, not much but twigs and small branches litter the ground. Until I rounded the corner of the greenhouse. Our venerable, old boxelder tree couldn’t hang on any longer, toppling toward the greenhouse, blocking the way. Luckily no damage, save for the loss of that grateful canopy. And it was old great uncle Rod, one of the founders of Kelley and Kelley, remembers climbing on its broad, overhanging branches when he was a lad in the early 1900s. That would make boxelder well over 150 years old. And huge – the circumference of the downed logs measured 13 feet. The tree had suffered major limb losses over the years, always saddening, but I somehow was not prepared for the sadness that came with losing the whole thing. One never is. That canopy, even diminished, provided a refuge – for man and beast. Now, hot sky in it place. A loss. One more rhythm connecting generations lost. So, a spiritual as well as a physical losts. We’ve retained the two massive pieces of trunk, placing them next to the remaining stump. We can still clamber on that old tree – if we wanted to.

We lost a friend last night and, like all friends, a one-of-a kind and irreplaceable friend.