There are Wild Things in the Garden

For a city girl like me, living in a little cottage in the wood is a very novel thing. I'm not used to not having rows of street lamps leading me home, or not having a gate, a fence or a buzz code that separates my little world from the the rest of the world outside. Or indeed, to have to burn wood for heat instead of just turning the thermostat knob for an instant gas fire to pop to into life. But the thing that really bowls me over, every minute, is the nearness of nature. Just next to the house, not 10m away is the woods.
There's a walking trail that is so overgrown I wouldn't have recognised it if my neighbour & landlady, Penny, hadn't pointed it out. Everywhere I look are trees. The straight & upfight Fir, the over green & over abundant Pine and the picturesquely scarggly Arbutus.
And then there's the quiet. Quiet enough to hear the wind caressing trees, the bees buzzing and the somewhat oddly regular crunching of leaves?

A curious sound that I just had to investigate.

Looking into the trees
I saw the most wonderful sight.

A couple of deer had wandered into
the garden below our deck
and without so much as a by your leave,
were grazing on the grass & shrubs.

I snuck across the deck to its edge to have a closer look, taking the greatest care to make as little noise as possible so as not to scare them. It was the closest I've come to a creature of the wild (unless you count Minke the demon cat, who is, by the way, getting more feral, if that were possible). It was magic! Then, I heard the loud Putt Putt puttering of a car coming down the road and was afraid the deer would run away and hide and my magic moment would come to an end. But no. Those deer continued with their veggie & daffodil buffet unperturbed (so much for the Ford Escape Hybrid commercials).
What's more they, made themsleves at quite home and plonked their ample tushes down under the dappled shade of a large Fir tree then proceeded with their after lunch nap.







I guess this city girl still has a lot to learn about the country kampung life.