Deer, Bears, and Wild Things

     Henri and I have been taking our longer walks in the evenings, sometimes as late as eight thirty. Late spring gives us long and luxurious evenings with dusk teasing out the day long beyond what is appropriate. It fools us into thinking we can go out to garden at what would normally be our bedtime in winter. It's wonderful.

     I snapped this photo with my cell phone. This is typical of the banks along our road. It shows one of many well-worn deer paths that bring the deer across the road. My first thought when I see these is that they are a perfect example of why we should not speed down our country roads. Eventually you will hit a deer. A few evenings later I peered into this trail from the road and saw a doe grazing just inside the tree line. It took her a few minutes to notice my face and when she did, she stood stock still. I smiled and said, "I seee you!" That's when she bolted. I must have looked like Jack Nicholson in The Shining to her. Haha!
    

      The wild honeysuckle is another thing that makes our evening walks so pleasant. It vines and trails all over the road banks, up telephone poles, along fencing, everywhere. The aroma is truly intoxicating. Many times I have to stop dead in my tracks just to breath it in. Henri might hear me talking to the honeysuckle now and then, mainly making declarations of my love for it. What can I say, it's overpowering.
     On a last note, Steve saw a "big" black bear cross our road one morning this week. He said the bear was moving quickly, going down the mountain. I heard another bear story from three AT hikers I picked up yesterday to give a ride. They talked about one of the AT shelters being closed because of bears. They said a bear or bears are stalking hikers on the trail. They had one that followed them from about seventy five feet away and made them quite jittery. The shelter has been closed for a couple of weeks already and was reported in the news. It sounds like there's a section of the AT trail in Daleville where the bears have grown accustom to finding food. Once they find easy food, they are drawn back to that area.
     I knocked off many projects these past two weeks. The blue bench is done, seat cushion sewn along with two more pillows I sewed for the porch. I finished my little hooked rug and I drew my next pattern to start. I also finished planting the foundation bed under our bedroom windows and I have only three more Little Lime Hydrangeas to plant in another bed. I've almost finished sewing Mari's prairie dress (Yay!) just in time for the delivery yesterday of seventeen yards(!) of pure white linen. Tomorrow I'll be sewing curtains. It's a good thing there is rain in the forecast this weekend...