I’m reading the book by Ursula K. LeGuin entitled Steering the Craft. It is a book about story writing. There are a number of exercises in it to try as you read the book. Here is the first exercise: Write a paragraph to a page that is meant to be read aloud.
My thoughts on deer:
Destructive deer are determined to drift onto my lawn and property. Seeking out fragrant flowers and shrubs that satisfy their never-ending appetite they enjoy frivolously feasting on our bounty busting branches that were beautifully set-up to enrich our landscape. They show no care for the work we have done to make our land pretty. Chomping on the tops of plants, leaving nothing but stems and roots. Leaving their droppings whilst pursuing their plunder, destroying all of the perennials and decorating our lean lawn with putrid poop to be stepped upon. Have they no care for our desires.
What can we do to stop them? Barriers and sprays don’t work. They shiver and shake when we’re around to see and fly at the least provocation. They patiently wait eyes and ears at the ready for any moment when we are not around or our backs are turned to again nibble and gnaw at our gardens. Then there are the ticklish tics that they bring and breed. Creeping, crawling little suckers of blood and bringers of disease that latch onto our clothes and skin as a reminder of the plunder of plenty that the deer have wrought to our humble hovel.
Some day, yes, some day we will prevail. But till then, we will continue to plant knowing that success is but a dream.
