I'm hoping that sometime soon an answer will just pop into my head (the kind of answer that I could easily put into practice) and I'll be able to fix the deer problem and secure safety for my little plants. But in the meantime, I guess I should just enjoy watching most of my garden grow up and try to protect it as best I can. There are now eight of my ten gladiolas up, all three of my dahlias,both of my lilies (though they are decapitated at the moment) and a lot of nasturtiums and bachelor's buttons. I also bought and planted two osteospermum plants, three gorgeous marigolds, two geraniums, and a little tea rose. I even have a tiny bench composed of two stumps from the forest and a few planks of wood stretched between them, and on this I will sit and watch my garden in the mornings while I journal and read; it's very handy, and the more time I spend out there the less opportunity the deer have to enter and conquer (though I expect most of their schemes take place in the dead of night, while they know that I can't fight back). So I sit and think and hope that my dear little garden will survive, especially the flowers that I have named, and sometimes I think up little spurts of poetry to write down later. This is one I composed a few days ago on my way home from a picnic with my sister:
Casting Rainbows
Sweet moment of noon in the blossoming May,
Glad hour of time's blessed rest.
Peace with the sun on the hills where I lie,
Among grasses the wind has caressed.
The iris is raising her chorus of praise,
So satin and purple and dear.
She's touching the sky, though miles away,
Which in dreams may be ever so near.
Wind of the fairies in maple and fir,
Blow silk of the spider about.
Cast rainbows of cobweb in glistening air--
Cast a line for the salmon and trout.
Puffs of white float lazily by
Amid the clatter of branches in dance.
The shadows that leap are nymphs of spring;
Sunshine is their drink spilled by chance.
