Dinner. And dinner for next year.
I was sitting at the dinner table when a doe with two fawns stepped gingerly through the backyard. “Awww cute.”
She was heading along the edge of the lawn toward a little mowed strip that passes between some small patches of trees and leads toward the swamp. I affectionately call this patch of mowed grass “the shooting lane”. I smiled. “I’m so smart!”
Abruptly the deer veered toward the back of the house. “What’s this?”
And headed toward our apple trees. “Stay away from my apples you bitch!”
I jumped up and ran to the door. Not ten feet away the doe was sniffing our not quite ripe apples. I was about to leap out and chase her away when I noticed she was pretty large. “Not so hasty grasshopper.”
In fact she’d fill a freezer pretty nicely and leave two little ones for the next generation. Should I sacrifice some apples now for slightly greater odds in a few months during hunting season? “Hmmm.”
But then I remembered my wife makes rocking good apple pies.
“CHARGE!”
I flailed away like a maniac and all three deer nearly jumped out of their skin.
I love apple pies!