Urban?

Tomatoes from my garden box.

I live inside the Washington DC beltway in an urban area with a lot of people and a lot of cars and I like it. I also like to garden in that small, non-self-sustaining way that a lot of urban dwellers do, hence the picture of tomatoes at the top of this post. I picked those this morning and had all kinds of connected-to-the-earth, pleased-with-myself sort of feelings. Then I saw a deer.

I was on the phone with my mother at the time, and I didn’t even get to tell her my satisfying tomato news, because I saw a deer running down my street. I’ve lived in this charming neighborhood nestled between two major highways for fourteen years. I work from home, often outside on my porch, so I see a lot of what goes in this neighborhood, and one thing that definitely does not go on is deer. But this morning a deer ran down my street and then hopped over my neighbors chain link fence like it wasn’t even there. Poof. It was gone.

Deer. They’re delicious, but otherwise, are like giant, pretty rats that destroy gardens and cars and sometimes the people driving them. They lead dogs astray, often with horrible consequences. I don’t like deer. I don’t like the idea of deer in my neighborhood and I really don’t like the reality of it.

My mother’s theory is that this particular deer was lost, separated from it’s herd and now confused. I don’t have anything against this specific deer and I hope it safely returns to it’s deer friends and family far away from here, and I hope it does it soon and without ruining any lives in the process.