Sunday, March 31, 2019

Okay I'm back

I keep wanting to maintain this blog as a sort of personal diary, mostly concerned with the nature around me and somewhat with the people. For reasons into which I have no insight, I keep abandoning it. But I'm going to try again. I don't expect to post every day but my goal is to post at least a couple of times a week.

It was a bit late in coming but we finally have some real spring weather, even with some frost free nights. I haven't made a fire since Friday, and the house is very comfortable just from solar gain. No  green shoots yet to speak of, although the daffodils I planted in the fall have come up. Any time now I expect the grass to start greening up.

While that should lift my spirits, nature is definitely out of whack. Mostly, there are too many deer. Far too many. I see flocks of them every day and they are preventing the forest from regenerating. Wildlife has come back during my lifetime -- not only deer but turkeys, black bears, and coyotes are far more numerous than when I was a child. There are also foxes and bobcats around here, and other creatures that are elusive but I know are around. I saw two foxes strolling across my lawn a while ago, first an adult and then what I assume was her kit. The problem is there aren't enough predators and what there are don't prey on deer. People think they're cute but somebody needs to start shooting them. By the thousands. Literally.

And by the way I'm a vegetarian. There's no contradiction. I would eat sustainably harvested wild game. It's the meat industry I object to.