Outdoor Friends

We live in the country. Given our rural location, we also have a number of non-human visitors which provides us great pleasure if we happen to catch sight of them. A few days ago, I saw a beautiful doe just as she was crossing the creek over our old stone bridge. The picture of the two moose was captured just in time after our dog Bella barked and scared them off. We have lots of turkey and other birds, including a red-tailed hawk who visits often.

We recently have discovered another guest that is not as welcome. As you can also see, we managed to put in a garden this year and we've been really pleased with the first year outcome, particularly with the spotty care I've put into it during Timothy's sporadic nap times. I was really excited with the corn and have been dreaming of freezing a bunch to eat during the coming year. I knew there was the possibility of losing some to animals, but figured we'd still have some to eat ourselves. Last week, we knew they were closer to being pickable, but Timothy came down with something and we were rather distracted from the garden. The racoons took this to their great advantage, however, and last Friday morning, we awoke to a ravaged garden--stalks on the ground, dozens of ears of corn on the ground and half eaten.

I was so disappointed, and we vowed to keep an eye on the few remaining ears to pick them before the little theives could get any more. That is until I got whatever our son had. This happened to be our saving grace, however! A couple nights ago, as I lay miserably in bed unable to sleep, I heard a noise outside and ran to the window to investigate. Sure enough, a coon was on our back deck, trying to nose his way into our compost bucket. When he proved unsuccessful, off he scurried to the garden. I didn't want to lose any more corn, so I woke up Shawn and out he went with a broom and ran screaming at that fat racoon who guiltily fled the scene.

All told, we didn't end up with much corn. The six ears Shawn picked after scaring off our furry friend gave up about a cup and a half of kernals. But there was so much satisfaction watching it grow and thinking about eating something we had planted and tended. It has been so nice to pull up a few carrots or pick some peas for supper. To be able to make a salad with only vegetables that we grew. To pickle a bunch of beans and cucumbers to last throughout the year. And it really didn't take that much effort to do. I hope in the coming years we'll be better attuned to when veggies are ready to harvest as well as know what will be happiest in our soil so that we can rely less and less on food imported from half-way across the world. It just feels good.