REALLY LOCAL NEWS 

• Wild pig invades property, ravages nothing in particular: “Just for fun of it” 

• Leaves filling culvert and accumulating on roadside await attention 

• Hornets nearly the size of  your hand invade carpenter bee nest in front eave; aftermath recalls Punic Wars 

• Crow stops using chestnut tree outside upstairs bedroom window for nationwide dawn announcements 

• Garden growing feral, organizing; home committee shorthanded, indecisive 

• Deer enjoys nightly snack of beautiful pumpkin leaves growing in all directions from compost pit outside garden fence; “succulent blossoms a special treat” 

• Fall of deceased oak awaited, chestnut going piece by piece 

• Green wheelbarrow with yellow handles full of broken garden pots; mental committee allegedly forming 

• Cherry limb that should have been trimmed a long time ago now popular woodpecker resort 

• Uncleaned rain gutter bitches and moans even in light rain 

• Brady hears loudest thunder in his life, in clear midday, right outside house; suspects unilateral attempt at stimulus 

• Mushroom logs confused by weather have no idea where they are 

• Anonymous midsized bird begins enjoying Brady cucumbers 

• Water pressure falls unexpectedly one morning for no reason 

• Generous village neighbor leaves some of her surplus sweet onions beside our door 

• Local farmers visit upmountain paddies now and then  

• All calm as rice grows 

BAMBI MONOGATARI

You gotta love those rare special events you have no idea are coming, moments you couldn't have imagined would be waiting there just ahead of now, like the other night. I was driving the grandgirls (12, 10 and 10) up to our place to stay the weekend; the darkness lay heavy on the mountain and the fog was thick, the way it loves to get in Spring.

As we wended our way up the winding road toward the house, I was driving slowly, expecting who knows what, some wild pigs, a buck, maybe - even a bear - to dash out from the forest and across the road... Then, in that quiet mood, as we came up around the last curve to the crossroads, just past the tunnel, with not much visible in the lowbeam glare, we met the unexpected: standing there, all alone in the swirling mist, at the center of crossroads and headlights, stood the actual Bambi.

I must say, in the dense silence of a foggy mountain night there is nothing louder than the sudden spotlit appearance of a baby deer in the roadway with three little girls in the car. A high moment it was for the Trio, and a strange moment for that tiny creature out there, panic shivering its white-spotted golden fawn body, big dark eyes staring into blinding light, in a world as new as it ever gets...

The girls slowly hushed at the emotion of the sight; I slowed the car even more, not knowing which way a skittish Bambi might bolt as we crept slowly toward him standing there bouncing around on four brand-new gangly legs - boing, boing, boing - then bobbling away - But that way was uphill, houses up there; then heading left - fence there; then to the right - fence there too, what to do what to do, it would have to be downward then: into the jaws... of the glaring monster... Would there be such courage in that new life? Or might a skittish infant just bolt under the car? What do we evernew creatures know about such things?

I slowed... and then stopped; Bambi bounced his way toward the side of the road and teetered squeezily past us, within arm’s length out the open windows, the girls calling his name right into his big ears, until he could skitter for deer life into the welcome darkness. Bet he never forgets that time when the huge nightbeast came at him with blinding eyes and roaring voice, and how he managed his escape.

A tale of courage for all descendants.

ME AND THE MINGS

I knew this day would come. I just thought I might get another summer out of it. The burgeoning beauty of my select lettuce varieties must simply have been too much for the drooling deer, who've had to live on conventionally blah weeds and good grief tree bark, and finally had it up to the antlers gazing through my not-antimonkey net fence at my neat rows of appetizing salad lettuces, top-of-the-line cucumbers, spare-no-expense zucchinis and deliciously crunchy beanpods, the apex of feral menu items. 

Seems the animals  living on the edge of civilization these many decades, deeper and deeper in the thralls of indulgence, have been getting fussier with each generation, becoming ever more accustomed to the finer points of civilized life, such as rap music and fast food. We must have had a similar experience back when we were Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons moved in next door. 

If this keeps up, pretty soon the animals will have urbs and burbs of their own, commuting to offices in their own beastly bureaucracies, the Deer Department, the Monkey Agency, the Inoshishi IRS...  For starters, though, last night one or two or three or more deer, maybe seven thousand, found a weak spot in my garden fence, widened it and partied on my lettuce, tangoed on my chard, buzzcut my chives, noshed my nasturtiums, beheaded my cukes, zapped my zukes... 

I know there's no point in putting up wanted posters on trees around the forest or even in the post office, with a deer mug shot and my phone number, so I just fixed the fence pro tem - not that it matters, there's always a weak spot in a fence, fences are all just a bunch of holes anyway. I just never had an actual fence before I moved here and took up the folly that is gardening on the edge-- this working hard to feed the wild and thankless animals.

For them, the feast was just laid out there on the carefully prepared banquet table; looked like they partied pretty much through the night; they have really quiet raves, not even a crunch... It must have gone on with subtle munching excitement until well near dawn, but I wasn't even awakened by wild belches. Not until I went out in the morning to get some lettuce did I realize I had to pick up the tab...

Right now I'm pondering new fence plans. I know how the Ming dynasty felt; it didn't work for them, but those were different times. That may sound something like Alfred’s definition of insanity, but I'm not a dynasty. My ambitions are much humbler. Like lettuce.     

 DEER GRAMMAR

Out in the garden this morning fiddling with the firewood, moving some last year's wood to the top of a less-old stack to consolidate my equity in more manageable form - energy is one commodity sector to go for in the foreseeable investment future-- where was I - oh yes, fiddling with the firewood, when I heard an odd rustling over in the far corner of our bonsai 40 acres. I looked up, focused into the shade over there and could finally make out the shape of the young scion of these parts, heir to the Baronial estates, the as-yet unnamed teenager too new to know how things work around here, unlike his father the Baron (wonder where he is?)... 

As the noble youngster strolled elegantly into the sunshine and my clear sight, still munching some of the mitsuba that he loves and that is wildly plentiful on our property, I was standing upwind of him so he could smell me, but to be sure there were no surprises at this proximity I clunked a couple of  pieces of dry cherrywood together (great sound) to let him know I was in fact physically there and was looking at him so I knew he was there too. In response he raised his head and looked at me, his young punky horns still velvety-knobbly (a scientific term), but those eyes were not at all punky.

They were more like soft, dark and unreadable. The strong, silent type. Wild. So I raised my hand and waved goodbye at him as a hint that he should depart. My deerese is poor, plus deer grammar is so dense and the inflection so subtle, he'd probably just chuckle at my efforts in that subdued deery way. I just said "Sayonara!" in the polite Japanese version of humanese, and he - understood! He paused a moment - to assert his dignity, like any teenager - then headed down the stone stairs, out the gate and across the road, where his friend the German shepherd lives and the grass is excellent. No mitsuba there, though, so it is a step down from these royal gardens, where the gardener also raises lettuce and spinach just inside the fence that one time had an open gate...

HANDS UP

Upstairs yesterday in all the quiet of a sunny afternoon I looked out the window into the garden and saw what at first I thought was The Baron, browsing quietly on some potato shoots growing out of my compost pile. But his color was more tawnily intense, he had new velvet horns, and it looked like some white spots there along the sides: I went to get my glasses: Yup, it was not The Baron, it was a male that had been a fawn not long ago that we had seen following its mother around, it was Baron II, heir to these great estates. Unfortunately, however, he was even now eying my lettuce, and the garden gate was open.

So I headed downstairs to get my props and be ready to do the Deer Chasing Routine. I asked Echo if she'd seen the deer, she said no, looked out the window and said Son of Baron. Yup I said. He's just a teenager, which is why he's come into the garden so carefree in broad daylight. He sure is a beauty, but he's heading for the lettuce, so I'm ready to chase him: Why don't you go in the back room and make some noise through the screen door, maybe that will be enough. I was expecting some Echo shouting, some hand clapping, maybe some banging on the wall or something, as I prepared myself to go out shouting and making gruff Brady noises, but suddenly from the big speakers we have back there came the top-volume breakout hip hop beat of the Black Eyed Peas, doing Hands Up:

Coming with rhythms to make your head jerk

Hands up

We makin' the whole joint short circuit

Hands high

Touch the sky

Get 'em up

Get 'em up, get 'em up, get 'em up, get 'em up, get 'em up (get 'em up)

We goin' make you move

We goin' make it hot

Elbows above your heads peoples

We holdin' up the spot

and so forth...

Which is way over any deer's head, but an impressive choice for the purpose. That's Echo for you.

At the very first bass beat so alien to his life, spirit and environs, I thought for sure Baron II would leap straight up and prong for the nearest exit, like I would if I were a deer under such circs, or even myself suddenly at a rap concert. That's what he would have done if I had stepped out the door, clapped my hands and shouted-- but then I'm not the Black Eyed Peas, am I.

He wasn't shocked, even though hip hop must have been new to him; on the contrary, he looked more like pleasantly surprised. He raised his head with that natural grace we admire in our arts and gazed toward the source of the beat, that BIG beat, with the rhythmic voice-noises and the grip of the song; those big brown eyes with a look in them that I've seen in eyes before, of a hungry emptiness, a curious seeking, a question with some panic at its heart.

He wasn't familiar with music, let alone with the Black Eyed Peas, to say nothing of lyrics; he stared for a long time - in grazing deer terms - at the roomdoor whence this mysteriously rhythmic and apparently human sound was issuing at chest-pounding volume greater than anything he'd ever heard, excepting maybe thunder directly overhead, backed by Echo clapping her hands. Should he run for his life, or could he safely ignore this amazing new thing? Could he graze and listen? He stood there looking, big ears focusing, trying to figure this out: was it a threat, was this a human in new form, was this... what was this? And he just a kid, these wild grape leaves so tasty, those lush lettuces just there in his vassal's garden...

The first several bars of the Peas seemed innocuous enough, but by the time he'd heard the hook and was getting into Verse 2 I could see he was getting antsy, the feeling was growing that this was a danger of some kind-- not sure what and maybe not imminent, but the wiser course was to get some distance into the situation, so he turned and trotted off toward the deep forest and a more traditional kind of music.

Who knows, though: having heard that beat, maybe he'll come back to stand in our garden and hope for more... he is a teen, after all, and there's nothing like that on his Big Radio.

I'll just have to be sure and keep the lettuce gate closed.

THE DEER SERVANT

Had an old wooden chest of drawers that we bought in a secondhand shop 30 years ago in Kyoto when we first moved here from Spain, took it with us when we moved out here to PLM 15 years ago and finally wore it out, put it outside to chop slowly into kindling for the woodstove, till the two remaining drawers wound up sitting under a big old cedar like at any old frugal countryside household where you don't throw anything organic away until one way or another it becomes compost, so when I decided this year to try and start some seeds early (pre-frost) in a sort of hot box-- now what could I use for a hot box? Those drawers started jumping up and down saying Me! Me!

So I put the potted seeds in one of the drawers and set that drawer atop the other, tilted the structure southerly toward the sun and covered it with some thick plastic sheeting weighted down on top with some square wooden posts, the posts in turn weighted down with bricks to keep the wind from blowing the whole pro-tem bradyrig away, and it has worked quite well, as far as that goes, which so far isn't too far, because as regards my deeply considered design algorithm (subsequently tweaked for rain accumulation) I hadn't accounted for Delta, the deer factor...

I hadn't realized how searchingly curious deer are at this verdant-edge time of year, how eager they are to learn what this two-legged borrower of their territory is doing with the property these days... Of course they remember the delicious greens we once so kindly provided for them in convenient pots, so when they come browsing along in their nightly wanderings and behold this new contraption they say to themselves What kind of goody has my servant put out for me this time? And poking their several noses down into the plastic sheeting to probe and sniff, only to find nothing but soil in pots, they realize once again that these two-leggers really don't have a clue about how to prepare deer food; Look at all that spinach placed completely out of our reach behind those nets: what kind of consideration is that? To say nothing of this garnish of bricks.

I really should mend my ways.

AS TO THE DRIVEWAY

Our good friend Sogyu came by the other day to talk about our driveway, we want to have a new driveway, nothing fancy mind you, just one that doesn't develop potholes every year and that can be shoveled in winter - given that we live on such a slope - and so that Echo can drive right up close to the house in the winter and fully open the car door, yet not slide down the mountain.

Sogyu built the stone wall in front of our house several years ago and did a great job, so there he was on a chilly evening ready to talk driveway, and in one of my usual seeming non-sequiturs I asked him about his monkey problems way out where he lives in the countryside over on the other beyond of these mountains, where all those monkeys must be ogling his garden day and night, and he said he didn't have a monkey problem, a statement that rendered me speechless as he went on to say that he did have a deer problem though, they had put up high nets around the 2 or 3 thousand soybean plants they'd planted last year, but then while they were away for a time the deer had chewed through the netting (large opening!) and then through all the soy plants, a total loss.

I was still speechless though so I didn't think to ask what kind of netting they had used. Reason I asked about monkeys - as if you don't know by now - I've put some netting on hoops over my rows in the garden, as a prototype test against monkeys mainly-- the wild pigs haven't bothered me much yet, but now that I have potatoes (cue theremin riff)...

I know that the deer come through every night and would gladly eat just about everything I have planted, as they have in my prenet past, but I can tell they seem especially to desire the tender leaves of delicious boston lettuce, the delicate fronds of luscious rainbow chard and the toothsome bunches of savory spinach, because every morning when I come out to check and harvest for lunch I see where the deer have fervently tried to push their hooves through the net, or maybe it's their noses, deer fervency can be pretty intense.

I picture them straining for all those illicitly free green preciouses-- just inches-- mere inches-- away from yearning teeth-- and falling short. The vision warms my heart with delight as I tighten the nets once more. These are tough, multifiber plastic nets, with no sign (so far) of deer teeth attempting to chew through them. Sogyu, being a nice guy, must be using tasty cotton nets... Though I still don’t know if these nets of mine will withstand the wiles of monkeys, who have oodles of godgiven time and hunger to outsmart me...

As to what's happening with the driveway, I have no idea. When Sogyu comes again this weekend, I'll be sure to ask him why in the world he has no monkey problems.

STAG PARTY

My apologies for the spaced-out quality of this brief ramble, I'm no judge of quality today, is this the right language? I hardly got a wink of sleep what with all the deer noise last night. From as soon as the lights went out until the sun came up it was one big stag party out there, with ladies attending. I kept expecting the loud clatter of horn against horn, but I guess the Baron has the harem all to himself. I saw him out-antlering a couple of young wannabe usurpers a month or two ago, but even though he was the only stag at this party, the ladies still gave him a run for his money. (Interesting inter-species use of idiom)

The Baron was courting all night outside my window and everywhere else around the house, where I'd hear at first, in a low whisper (I understand deer Japanese) "Hey, babe, where are you?" Then a demure "Over here, Buck!" Followed at once by a clatter of hooves over stone, a rustle of low branches and "Babe, where'd you go?" "I'm over here now, Buck!" and so on, all night. The imminent prospect of sex is never tiring, at least for the participants.

Just as I'd fall asleep hooves would the pound on the road, then there'd be a doe-ish giggle over in the field, followed by an eight-legged round-and-round through the oak trees, the bamboo, the hedges, my garden, over and among my firewood as I tossed and turned, repeatedly plucked from imminent dreams by a yearning stag call that resembled air squeaking out of a balloon and ending in a bleat from an oogah horn.

How any female would yield her charms in response to that type of endearment (note avoided pun) I can't imagine, and judging by the extent of the chasing, the ladies didn't, really, till they just got too worn out to say no, which was about the time I had finally given up and gotten up, and was making my tea. It was quiet from then on.

The deer were racked out in the bamboo after their exhausting night; I had to go to work after mine.

Anyway, come Spring we'll get to see the golden, gawky, big-brown-eyed results.

EARLY DAWN DREAM

In the night, the August night, I barely awoke from a dream about deer and the world was still of the dream; I heard the sound of deer taking careful steps through the high grass in my garden, then there was a soft crunching as of deer browsing on my prospering verbena or my surviving basil, their chewing so intent that I arose and peered out the window in the first hint of dawn and was able to see a morning's dream: a summer dawn rain falling in soft waves, with a rhythmic, tender sound like the slow chewing of lush, new-grown leaves, as from the house eaves came a slow regular dripping, like the soft steps of deer though high grass in a dream to which I returned at once, awakening later to find the basil and verbena not only intact, but fresh from dreams of rain...

THE BARON PREFERS ORGANIC

In a post a couple of days ago concerning the fact that I had been robbed blind in the night by a wild ruminant with major horn action, aka The Baron, I was amazed that the stag had eaten all my tomato leaves, when it had been my impression that nothing ate tomato leaves, excepting perhaps a species or two of seriously misguided insects who didn't yet realize what they were eating, or were simply insane.

Then this morning I read a headline that led to an article saying that a ten-year study - already being attacked by other scientists (perhaps Monsanto-funded, judging by my scientific snide index) - alleging that organic tomatoes have much more of certain important flavonoids, specifically quercetin and kaempferol, names that do not as yet rock the world.

To the weight of that study can now be added the expert opinion of The Baron, creature of great repute and renowned connoisseur of vegetation, who relished every single leaf on my tomato plants, because of course my tomatoes are – I mean were - 100% organic.

I would have enjoyed the tomatoes, too, but royalty takes precedence in certain areas.

PRICING THE OUTDOORS

After days of heavy rainy-season rain, except for when I was in the office (yesterday heavy and continuous rain through which I gazed at my stacks of logs to be split), here I am on another sunny day in the office, recalling how the lake looked this morning not long after I awoke at around dawn into the thick silence that falls like a sky-sized blanket when a monsoon rain abruptly stops-- and way up there on the mountain the residual mist makes the atmosphere visible, imparting new depths as it dissipates with the rising light...

I stood at the big glass doors that front the living room and sipped my tea while watching the sky clear and the lake turn blue, starting with a ragged hole of golden sunlight opening over the middle of the cloud-gray water, the hole widening as the clouds broke up, into crumbly tufts by the time I was freewheeling downhill through the scattering mist to catch the train that took me to what by the time I arrived was a warm sunny city.

That morning scene recalled to me this snippet from an article by Barbara Ehrenreich:

"I need to see vast expanses of water, 360 degree horizons, and mountains piercing the sky -- at least for a week or two of the year. According to evolutionary psychologist Nancy Etcoff, we all do, and the need is hard-wired into us. 'People like to be on a hill, where they can see a landscape. And they like somewhere to go where they can not be seen themselves,' told Harvard Magazine earlier this year. 'That's a place desirable to a predator who wants to avoid becoming prey.' We also like to be able to see water (for drinking), low-canopy trees (for shade), and animals (whose presence signals that the place is habitable.)" The Rich Have Priced the Outdoors out of Everyone Else's Hands [Except where I live. RB]

I do like a broad expanse of landscape, especially above water, though it's been a long time since I felt like either predator or prey. As to "animals whose presence" etc., the deer (that I would have sworn had all moved way upmountain by now) just ate all my chard and all the leaves off my bean plants, acknowledging in their deery way my small efforts at making the place more habitable.

GOLDEN PALACE

There I was at dusk, standing atop the fresh-cut pile of hinoki (Japanese cypress) logs down at the bottom of the garden, when in the stillness I heard a bird chattering warning high in the forest across the road, so I stopped to listen for what might be the matter.

Soon I heard a large rustling that drew nearer: then there was the buck, standing with his head out in the open at the edge of the road; he'd stopped there midstep because I'd moved, craning my neck to see over the azalea hedge what the noise might be.

He was the picture of majesty, just his head and shoulders visible, must be a 14 pointer at least, though I couldn't see well and other things were edging through my mind; the wind was crosswise of us, so he couldn't get my scent, but he knew something was there so froze, and as I looked at him it was dawning on me that he was about 1/10 of a second away, chargewise, and this was his turf.

He couldn't really see me clearly in this light or tell what I was because of the wind so he might take it into his multi-tined head to assert his rights - he could leap over this hedge in a twinkling - and though I'd seen him several times at a distance I had no real idea of his character, so even though it isn't exactly mating season and he owed me a lot of spinach I decided it would be better to pursue the better part of valor.

When I got up to the deck I looked and he was still there staring; I called Echo out to have a look and he stared at us a while, then turned and loped back into his vast golden palace. I figure you can't really begrudge a guy like that a little spinach.

FOND MEMORIES OF VENISON

No, I'm not going back to consuming the flesh of other creatures in rare chunks and gobbets, I just instantly happened to recollect the hearty flavor of the venison my uncle used to bring us every deer season when I went out into the garden yesterday morning to get some spinach for lunch and found the entire bed looking like the rich green exclusive carpet in the lobby of that classic hotel in Hollywood, whose name understandably eluded me.

I shook my head to clear my eyes, but no matter how long I shook it, the large and only yesterday vigorously growing spinach bed remained as flat and smooth as if a herd of sheep had just come through. There was only one set of tracks, though: the hoofprints of a deer bouncing around with the sheer joy to be found in a pre-dawn feast of green lusciousness. (Imagine the savor and mouthfeel of several square meters of fresh baby spinach, after an entire winter of dried bamboo leaves.) No doubt it was the buck who's been at the biwa tree: I went over to check that and sure enough, he'd had the biwa tree for dessert and used no napkin, just left the bedraggled branches hanging where he'd broken them off to get at the best parts.

So in a sort of deeply reflexive, not to say Pavlovian way, I began to recall the increasingly appealing taste of venison. Nothing really omnivorous mind you, just a brief hallucination brought on by a sudden deficiency of spinach, aggravated by biwa trouble. I love deer; they go great with mashed potatoes and gravy, nice spinach salad on the side.

VISION TALE

Talking with my upmountain neighbor the other day, he was out trimming snowbroken branches from the cedars and some from the oaks (the acorns do a day-and-night-drum-roll on his roof every autumn, something to think about if you're thinking of building near oaks) and I was out checking the shiitake for more buttons, getting some ginger (keeps real well when just left in the ground, I learned this year) and greens, and pondering a place for the bay tree, which is getting too big for its container, will have to be planted-- preferably soon-- when his and my paths converged near the tree line and he told me that the other morning he looked out his kitchen window at the back and there was a multipoint buck an arm's length away, eating acorns from the ground. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he ran for his video camera but when he got back the buck was gone. That's probably the same deerfellow that dined so crudely on my biwa tree.

I look out my windows all the time, seen monkeys, pheasants, ferrets, quail, mamushi, raccoons and rabbits, but I've never seen a deer. Or a bear or a wild pig, though they're around here too, and I'll probably see them all, sooner or later. But my neighbor, who has just moved here from the city, was way more excited by the encounter than the deer was, and now because he couldn't get his camera in time, when he visits his friends in the big urb he'll have to find the words to do the vision justice in telling them the story of his forest spirit, the same way such stories have always been told by seers vouchsafed visions, the tellers of tales to be remembered, for a million years before such stories led to us...