the Walnut Diary

This year I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain with the wolves over fish heads, so last night when I finally took some out to the row of blight-resistant butternut seedlings next to the walnut orchard, two deer were standing there, placidly chewing on my prized butternuts.  They moved over into the walnuts while I distributed the gory wolf-bait, but one came to the apple trees below the house this morning to entertain us over breakfast.  Yearlings or young does, I think.  Much larger and sleeker than the runts on the lawn at the Queen Charlotte Lodge.  Night before last one explored both gardens, nipping leaves off a corn plant, but that’s about it.

They’re pretty things.