THE BARON DOES A HOUDINI

Yesterday morning after getting some beans etc. from the garden, since I'd be coming back again later to plant some things I closed the upper portion of the gate - which is all netting anyway (like the entire fence) so it keeps ground creatures out merely by the troublesome look of it - I then went inside and was up in the loft wrestling with some powerful editing concepts when Echo, downstairs in the kitchen, shouted "The Baron is in your garden." Not THE garden, but YOUR garden. Impossible, I thought. The noble beast couldn't spot, let alone get through, that tiny hole among all those holes.

Nevertheless I went downstairs, just to humor Echo's endearing (note explicit avoidance of nearly irresistible pun) hallucination, and there I saw out the big kitchen window not the expected absence, but the undeniable presence, of a large and fully antlered male deer in MY garden. Fortunately, the beast had just gotten in (how?) and was sampling only some weeds near the entrance - rich lush weeds, compared to his well-used dining area outside the fence.

The last time I'd forgotten the gate at the end of a gardening day, the Baron had come in the night to partake of his royal pantry and had dined on some weeds and spinach, with strawberry leaves for dessert, then left quietly by the same fully open way. This time, though, there had been but a tiny way in; would he find it instantly when panicked in broad daylight? I couldn't just walk out there and open the gate for him; if he freaked, I'd have a powerful horned creature tangled up tightly, perhaps together with myself, in one or more of the walls of my ruined garden fence and would have to call some wildlife authorities to get him/us out of there.

On the other hand, I wasn’t about to let a savage ruminant wander my garden at will, so I opened the door to the deck and stepped slowly outside, about 20 meters from him. He saw me at once, and dashed straight away to freedo... No. Not that way. He saw me, still there, folding my arms - though I doubt that deer sense umbrage - and dashed over that way to free... No again. He ran this way then that then this again, through my peppers, tomatoes, beans, potatoes, spinach, new radishes, baby cucumbers, goya, sunflowers... much wincing was exercised. But he could not find the way out.

Back and forth he ran, more and more casually, looking for his exit while I just stood there, quietly reminding him by my inaction that he should get out, but could take his time. He seemed to be trying to gather whatever passes for deer thoughts, then finally went back to that corner and paused, head lowered...there was a memory there... pushed forward and an entire huge antlered body slipped out through a tiny hole in the bottom of the fence. He was a cervid Houdini. Taking no bows, he whitetailed it upmountain.

When I went out to view all the damage he must have done, and to CLOSE THE #%&$#* GATE, I found that despite all that running around he hadn't done any damage! The only changes were one slightly tilted potato plant and one deep hoofprint in the pepper bed. Oh, and some weeds near the gate were a lot shorter, but I'd been meaning to do that myself on a larger scale as soon as the rain stopped.

Thanks for the head start, Baron.

GODS IN THE GARDEN

You know how it is when you garden with no fence yet, but with deer, wild pigs and monkeys around, plus you're an eclectic kind of person, all sorts of stuff going on in head and out, you try any number of things, and in the nature of eclecticity often rather haphazardly-- depends on the day and whether you've had coffee or what, all matters of interest somehow, and now and then - almost inevitably - you forget some of all that stuff, like what specific carrots or where kinds of potatoes?

Well early last autumn I planted a few different kinds of interesting but uncommunicative carrot seeds and intriguing but mute seed potatoes here and there where space was available at the time - this was all pro tem back then in the imminent garden - and covered them all with hoops and netting.

Then a few months later during the grandgirls' visit they plucked some of the carrots and I weeded the potatoes once, then as winter passed and the snow deepened my mind drifted hibernationally away from the garden and closer to the woodstove, and I became somehow of the impression that the potatoes would revive in spring, send up new leaves and grow some more, to be harvested maybe somewhen early to mid-summer or maybe later, there would be a sign from a benevolent garden deity or something, gardening can be vague in a lot of ways; a bag of seed potatoes is not very communicative. Queries such as 'And where are you from, little potato?' or 'How do I grow you and when will your progeny be ready?' are met with that profound spud silence.

So I figured six months or thereabouts, what do I know, I could look it up on the net but they're already planted, I'll find out, what's the hurry, the gods will speak. You laugh. Well, I was out there a couple days ago learning what the edge of spring does to winter spinach, and through the netting noticed in one of the barren-topped potato mounds alongside there what looked like the skin of a potato showing through, where the Baron had been trying to push a hoof through the net and get at the spinach (which appears to be speeding up). I went out there later with the pitchfork to investigate the potato innuendo, and to my late winter amazement, from that one mound dug up 4 softball-sized potatoes. There are lots of ready potatoes out there in the ground, right now.

That's how I learned that the Baron is a garden deity.

BARON IN BLUE

Yesterday afternoon I was up in the loft editing my brains out when Echo yelled Look out into the garden! I was up like a shot ready to make some big noise, thinking it was a horde of monkeys after my new onions or the last of my shiitake, but to my pleasant surprise it was The Baron himself, in full regalia, after a long night of heavy cruising and courtship, of lovey-dovey deer-yelling all over the place, a lot of of it right in our garden, a popular wild bordello at this time of year.

But here he was in broad daylight! He never leaves his palace during the day, let alone wander among his subjects out in the open like that, browsing lazily on the various herbs of ours (actually his, under deer jurisprudence) that he likes to indulge in when passing through as though it were night and we asleep.

I ran to get my camera and snapped a shot through the loft window just before his lordship suspected the presence of paparazzi and glided off into the neighboring woods. Turned out I'd had had the camera set for indoor lighting (having last night taken a pic of the holiday lights we put up, to send to the really grandkids), so the only known photo of The Baron is in blue. Seems fitting somehow, for that stately mien-- like a picture on a wall in a big room of a noble house, The Baron in his blue phase, looking good even after a long night of rampant passion... (Note background of monkey-tossed shiitake logs...)

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.