As you well know, I am a Midwesterner married to a Southerner. He hunts, I pretend meat grows wrapped in cellophane in the case at Lowe’s Foods. So our whole married life I have made snide remarks to him and The Boy when they go out murdering Nature’s creatures. With the exception of one said creature. The one that does this to my flowers. All. Of. My. Flowers.

I am not the best gardener so when I actually grow something in my yard the produces beautiful flowers, I want to enjoy them. If I choose to remove them, it will be to put them in a vase in my house to bring Nature inside. The damn deer seem to wait until the night before I plan to cut them for vases and boom – snack time. You would think that 80 pounds of Labrador Retriever would be a deterrent, but not so much.

Lucille chases deer in our backyard natural area most mornings, but she really only phones in her effort. It is not all out like she means it – not like it is when she is going after a tennis ball fiercely. Our guess is that she is half assing it because she does not know what to do when she catches the deer. This only happened once. She was chasing a deer at early o’clock, caught up to the deer and sort of bonked her head against it, stopping cold, looking around. It was like time stood still. Like when that hottie says yes to a date. Like when your mom says yes to candy before dinner. You have no follow up response, because you thought the answer was no.

Then Lucille turned around and ran back to the house. Ever since then, the deer come over every night for midnight snacks.