CityGrrl Goes Suburban and Learns Something

I visited my Mom’s house the other day. This is maybe 10 miles east of my house. I’m a city-dweller and she’s suburban. My lot is not as wide as a city bus is long. The photo above is part of her front yard.

I grew up in this house. It edges a cemetery, behind which once was wetland/flood plain. Now even the wetland has houses built on it. This means that critters crowd into the cemetery for peace, and forage out when they need food.

When I was a kid, we had rabbits in the yard. They were guaranteed to eat the blueberry bushes, from the bottom up. We had chipmunks and squirrels. I do not remember other wildlife, besides birds.

In the last dozen years or so, Mom has dealt with large rodents (groundhogs?) at the back of her yard, near the cemetery. She has been brilliant dealing with those, but that is a different story than the photos I present here.

When I visited Mom’s the other day, I saw tracks in her front yard and thought “bunnies!” Then I looked again, and the tracks seemed too deep for that. I stopped and got out my camera.

The glimpse above made me think “hooves, not paws.” I remembered mom’s stories of her plants being eaten, even her front yard, last year. I wondered… deer?

Looks like it to me. I found a photo on Travels.com which confirms this thought.

I can’t help it, now I want to sing that song from Sound of Music…