Every single place you go there is an opportunity to learn something new. Last night, we were picking up some comfort Mexican food at our newest neighborhood restaurant, when we overheard this guy waiting for his to-go order say that the deer would be starving this winter. He wasn’t exactly a mountain man, but he did look like he knew a thing or two about hunting. So I interrupted his conversation about how many deer had been spotted and/or hit by a car on his way over here, a common subject in this neck of the woods, to ask him why the deer would starve this winter. I was expecting to hear about another snowmageddon.
Instead, he told us that their main food source, acorns, had been decimated by those tasty little critters Ms Bean loved to crunch. 
In this year of the cicada – where numbers reached one million per acre and sometimes more – not only did the insects hatch their eggs in the branches of oak trees, they managed to feed on and kill off those portions of the tree. I had noticed splotches of dead, brown leaves at the ends of many of our oaks, and I knew the cicadas were responsible. Even though this was the 17 year plague of the cacophonous insect, I was told our trees would survive the onslaught. I didn’t think about the loss of acorns.
Don’t look away Ms Bean, you know you loved them!
An acorn on an oak tree grew,
The wind around him gently blew,
It whispered to him quite softly
‘Some day from your mother
You will be free
To grow and be a mighty tree’
‘Who’? ‘Me’? A mighty oak’?
The little acorn thought this a joke.
Acorns have been the subject of poetry, like the above poem by Joseph Enright, and have been used in heraldry designs for centuries. In fact, I believe they gave bonny Prince George’s mum, Kate, a crest with an acorn when she married into the Royal Family. Here it is on the right, joined with Prince Wills. There are three acorn sprigs that represent the three children in the Middleton family. And the leaves represent Berkshire, where she grew up. I like the unicorn!
Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window to see a mama deer with two young fawns nursing underneath her. She stood straight and tall and we just stared at each other. We’ve posted our property so that hunters are forbidden, still I don’t want these beautiful animals to starve. This weekend I’ll be going to a farm supply store, to see what deer would like to eat. They’ve finished off my roses, and the new growth of a few tender shrubs. One even managed to find and trample the fence around a new fig tree, but he only ate half of it. Considerate don’t you think?
Kensington Palace released this photo of the new conjugal coat of arms for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
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I hadn’t heard this at all. But please don’t feed the deer- -you’ll never get rid of them and they become dependent on you. Frankly, I’d be happy to have the herd weeded a bit— they’re a menace- eating everything and dangerous to cars, etc. Feed birds instead!
I know Lisa, but we have a lot more country down here. I stopped feeding birds because I didn’t want to attract bears out here…which I’m sure deer food would do also!