Oh my my. I must beg a thousand pardons for my recent internet neglect. Work and school have been quite busy - plantings are nearly finished - and other stuff has taken up the rest of my time. My time is limited enough that I decided not to put in a vegetable garden this year. How 'bout that?

With her mom finally home from knee replacement surgery and rehabilitation, B headed off to Montana this weekend for an 8-day work/fishing excursion so I'm handling household chores single-handedly for awhile. And I've been cat-sitting this adorable and entertaining little Siamese kitten, Muguet, for some neighbor friends this weekend.

Muguet's people have 35 acres of sparsely wooded fields and wetlands so Dylan and I took our opportunity for a couple of nice long morning nature hikes. I'm glad that the mosquito density has dipped below 2 per cubic foot of air. Sheesh. Yesterday, we spotted a couple of whitetail deer, lots of gray catbirds and red-winged blackbirds, a male rose-breasted grosbeak, a pair of yellow warblers and a rabbit. The fields were dotted regularly with daisies, indian paintbrushes and a yellow flower I need to identify. Sunday morning, we'd scarcely made it past the backyard before Dylan scared up a very handsome young deer fawn and his mother. The spotty fawn raced into a clearing and posed for a good look before leaping away into the brush. Mama deer raced across the clearing with Dylan close behind. I called Dylan back to me with 4 or 5 shouts; he u-turned back to my feet and sat like a good dog. Surprisingly, mama deer u-turned too. She turned toward us, stopped, gave several loud warning snorts and headed right back at us snorting and stomping all the way. Oh crap. She took two strong leaps toward us and then swerved off in the direction of her fawn. I had never seen a deer behave so boldly. I've had a few dairy cows chase me away from calves before, but I was unaware that whitetail deer had that ability too. We finished up our walk without further excitement and drove home.

Technorati tag(s): birding, nature