So I looked out my window at this nice bucolic scene, the deer browsing among the fallen crabapples on the front lawn. Very peaceful and lovely. Then I noticed one of the deer kept chasing another one away. They usually shared quite amicably but I’d seen this before, and this was the time of year for it. The chaser was the lead doe, and the chasee was a young fellow with just the first, nubby suggestions of coming antlers on his forehead. A button buck. She’d chase him off a short distance, he’d come back, she’d chase him off again, over and over. She was determined. I pictured thought bubbles over their heads: “Hey Mom it’s me” from the button buck, and “You’ve got those things on your head, get out” from the doe. It makes me very sad for him, but I guess this is how deer prevent inbreeding. 

It’s hard to think of winter coming, with the weather as warm as it’s been through September. It’s been giving me cognitive dissonance – on warm Michigan days I expect the sun to be up till 9:30 or 10:00 at night, but it’s setting by 7:30. No more saving yard work for after dinner: the warm weather keeps the tomatoes ripening, so I keep weeding them.

The zinnias and cosmos continue too, but as they get taller and taller, reaching for the retreating sun, they’ve started toppling over into the mini-pumpkin patch. That’s not a giant zinnia, it’s a wee pumpkin.

Rooting around under the tomatoes, I found another four-leaf clover. There’s one plant in here that turns them out fairly consistently, so I can be generous with what I wish on them. I used this one to wish good luck to young mister button buck.