Last night I woke up and tiptoed downstairs, my beautiful tulips were sleeping deep sleeps. The moon was 99% full according to my Moon Phase app – hazy in the thin cloud cover but still illuminating across the homestead. I could make out the grape arbor, the late lilac, the burning bush and hard lines of the chicken coop, sugar shack, and pea trellis. I saw movement out under the willow tree. It wasn’t a shadow or a silouette but the shape of a deer grazing the peeking grass from the run that leads under the road and into the swamp across the street.
I watched for awhile, not sure if I was seeing young antlers or just alert ears in the dusky moonlight. They hopped over the snowpile, struggling a bit and perused the driveway. A car drove by scaring them back under the arbor vitae where I know they like to come down and nibble. They know they need their Vitamin C – between the deer and the birds, the tiny rosehips have disappeared, too. They have to fight ticks as much as the rest of us and keep their immune systems up for good health. I’m less thrilled when they nibble down young apple tree tips, and when they decimated my Fall peas and calendula last year but that is partially our fault when we do nothing to discourage them (y’know, like fences?!). They gotta do what they gotta do.
Meanwhile, the sap begins to flow, the wild seeds retrace their collective growing memory, and the salamander who lives in our basement hides and seeks. The birds – I’ve been spying titmouse, nuthatches, chicka-dee-dee-dees, crows, and even a small flock of robins, they snuggle down in the night. The fire turns to warm coals. I return to sleep for a family dream where the full moon keeps us connected.
Rock Bottom Homestead 