End of Summer Coming

Drove my youngest daughter back to college yesterday for her sophomore year. Standing here in front of the door to her suite. I have always loved transporting my children because that is when we have the best conversations. This time we talked a lot about college and dorm life, and I told stories about how I met my friends at Yale, filling me with nostalgia.

On the way she remembered that she was supposed to bring a broom and dustpan for her suite. So we stopped at a Target along the way. Getting back in the car I said, "Mission accomplished." She said, "Dad, this was just a side quest."

The dog has been injured, so instead of running in the woods he has just been getting little walks around the neighborhood. Which has not been without its excitement, because there is a whole herd of deer that hangs out in the woods that border on the condominium complex down the street. Here Kidu tries to break the leash to get off after this fawn.

Does standing about twenty yards from us in a little strip of woods between the condos and a townhouse development. I think they stand there boldly like this, sometimes as little as 15 feet away, because they want to make sure the dog sees them and, should he break free, chases them instead of their fawns. They have no fear that one suburban dog is going to catch them.

And then one afternoon we saw the whole herd together, buck, two does, and two sets of twin fawns. If this buck is the father then he really hit the jackpot this year. Deer are one of the mammal species that control the number of offspring based on how well fed they are early in pregnancy, so it must have been a very good winter for deer. There are fawns everywhere, at least three sets of twins just within our walking radius. Lousy picture because we were a long way off. I had my camera out to get a better shot when Kidu starting barking, something I have never seem him do around deer. This many at once just overwhelmed him.

Meanwhile, in the garden. It was cool last week, and the flowers came back nicely after wilting in the heat of the two weeks before the hurricane.