rube.com

When fall comes to the Upper Grant Creek area, the buck deer seem to become more aggressive, daring, braver, etc. Their taste buds apparently change at this time of the year also. The deer stripped all the lower branches and leaves off the young poplar trees I planted a couple years ago. But that was because this summer I was stupid enough to remove the protective fences I had around the trees. They also cropped all the strawberry plants to the ground and they had to squeeze around a fence to do that. They even ate left over rhubarb and herb plants and the flowers beside the strawberry plants.

Last year the bucks whittled dowm all the mum flowers that Nana had planted in front of our house. It made me a tad sad to see how disappointed Nana was that she didn’t get to enjoy the beauty of these flowers that had just started to bloom. Well sir, this year I put on my stinkin’ thinkin’ hat and thunk ’bout it a good part of the summer and I cum up with a maze of simple willow frames staked to the ground and covered with deer and bird netting. I tell ya I was so excited with my simple little flower protection invention I ’bout pee’d my pants. And ya know what….one night in the second week of October, 2006, about 2 AM in the morning I had to get up to discharge what felt like a voluminous amount of excess liquid body waste (I had ta pee). As I was ‘a shufflin’ to the potty I heard this creakin’, scrappin’, scratchin’, bumpin’ sound. At first, because it was a cool night (we had the window open as usual), I thought, “It must be gettin’ cold outside ’cause the floor is contractin’ and creakin’ already like it does in the winter when the temperature drops down to freezing.” As I was doin’ my potty duty, I heard the scrappin’ racket just on the outside of the bathroom wall.

” OH NO!”, I said to myself, “Them dang bucks; they’re scrappin’ their antlers against the house….That means they’ve busted thru my ingenious flower protection invention and they’re chompin’ on the mums. Shooooot! All my hard work and time and money I spent on that flower protection invention was for nothin.”

When I had finished the job for Ma Nature, I went out to the livin’ room, turned on the front porch light, opened the front door, stepped out on the steps with nothin’ on but my skivvies and tried to look out at the probably dilapidated mums. But there was no moon out, the sky was overcast and the night was as pitch black as the insides of the belly of the whale (or was it a fish) that swallared Jonah; so I really couldn’t see anything. Besides that, it was too cold to be trapsin’ out there with hardly nothin’ on but my birthday suit, so I came in and crawled back into bed. I’d scared that buck away for a while anyway.

I got up the next morning, went out to check out the damage and guess what……. Up to now the score was probably: Deer: 12 vs. Papa: 0. BUT NOW, it’s: Deer: 12 vs. Papa: 1

That buck had been buttin’ his horns against the house alright, but he couldn’t get thru Papa’s flower protector invention. Everything was still in place and ALL the blooming flowers were still there.

I might not ‘a won the war, but I won a battle. Actually maybe three battles. “Cause the deer have been back a couple more times, but the flowers are still there. If these are the same bucks I’ve seen sneaking’ through our back yard a time or two, they’re pretty good sized. I’ve seen a four point and a three point. Guess I should take a salt shaker and go out and try to catch one. Right? Or maybe Ryan will go up the mountain behind us and nail one of them critters and make some jerky or sausage……………..Yeah. By the way if you don’t know how to catch a deer with a salt shaker, ask me and I’ll tell you that bit of wisdom.

Papa