The Great Garden Disaster of 2009...

I have always had a garden throughout my adult life, even the year I had an apartment and had to lobby the building owner to let me plant cucumbers in the flower bed. (True story....see how weird I am??!) In fact, most years The Man and I get so enthusiastic that we're able to feed half the block with the shit our garden produces. There's nothing more satisfying than prowling the neighbourhood on a warm summer night, looking for people who left their car doors open so you can leave a baseball-bat sized zucchini on their passenger seat. That just reeks of love to me.

But this year, our efforts at gardening were shot all to hell through a combination of crappy weather, sneaky deer and a frustrated ex-hunter. The result of our collective misery was this:

Yup, it appears that have achieved a bumper crop of hay this year. Makes me feel like going down to the Feed 'n Seed and getting me a goat or something.

Goddammit, what HAPPENED? I know you're wondering. Well, first off the weather this spring sucked balls. It rained every single damn day for weeks, I swear, meaning that it was late May before we even had a seed in the ground. But then we lovingly planted it all and sat back to wait for the veggies to roll in. And we danced gleefully around when the first few shoots poked out of the dirt. All was well.

And then, Bambi happened.

Now, I live in the country, which means that on any given day I can look out the window while I'm having my breakfast and see all sorts of wildlife strolling around. And we have deer. A shit load of them, quite frankly, and that's why we have this handy-dandy stupid looking fence all the way around our precious garden.

This fence may not be pretty. Heck, it only serves to add to the whole backwoods-redneck-trailer-trashy type vibe we've got going on, what with the sofa we used to have on the veranda and the "Nascar Fans Park Here" sign on our garage. But, it was cheap and did the job of keeping most of God's larger critters away from my edibles.

Until Bambi apparently learned to shimmy.

Now, this fence really goes almost all the way to the ground, but according to my husband, who swears he's never lied to me, (HA!) the deer have in fact been spotted writhing on their stomachs in the dirt in order to get under the fence and eat our tomatoes.

I admit that I'm skeptical, but I was away at cadet camp and cannot confirm or deny the supposed acrobatic abilities of these forest-dwellers. All I know is that my husband got so disgusted at seeing his hard work reduced to stems each and every morning that he just said "FUCK IT!", threw up his hands and let the garden turn into the massive hayfield that I enjoy today.

Now, back in the day, my former Mighty Hunter of a Husband would have grabbed his rifle and reduced our interlopers to venison. However, as a result of his newfound appreciation for the wonders of nature (and the fact that I would castrate him while he slept) the deer were free to have their way with our goodies. And they did. There's not a hell of a lot that survived the onslaught.

But wait! if you look closely, you can see that not all is lost. Amidst the shrubbery you can pick out a few sturdy basil plants....

....a few squash that may or may not amount to anything worth picking....

HECK! If I get out the scythe and mow down the waist-high flora, I think I may be able to salvage a dozen or so good sized onions!

Ah well. I'm disappointed that my Significant Other gave up so quickly, but what can you do? Sometimes you win, sometimes it's Mother Nature. Personally, I take it as a sign to always be humble and respect the fact that we live in tune with the earth, not apart from it. There will be other summers and other gardens, and at least I have the pleasure of seeing the deer out back in the morning under the apple trees. And they truly are beautiful.

Peace!