Big Bucks

Several weeks ago we were completely out of bird seed, and I asked The Squire to pick some up when he was in Fallston. He came home and I heard him dump seed into the trash can we use as a seed bin. “How helpful of him”, I thought. When he came inside, he announced he’d gotten enough to last a while. “I’m not sure it’s our regular brand, but it was a lot less expensive, so I got three bags.” NEVER, never buy bird seed you can’t see! It is honestly junk. Some cracked corn, a bit of millet (canary seed) and mostly milo. The only birds that will touch it are starlings, grackles, and red-wing blackbirds. Finally, in sheer desperation, I have been filling a kitty litter bucket halfway and dumping the seed out in the “back forty” – the Baltimore Gas and Electric right-of-way behind the barn.

Last night there was a deer out in the clearing, so large I thought it was a horse, until he raised his head and I saw the antlers. He was joined by a second, slightly smaller buck, both of them munching along the path left when I swung the first bucketful of seed across the lot. At least, somebody likes it! I’ll have to keep carrying it out there until I run out of the darned stuff. I may have to send The Squire back up to actually buy more of the it, just to feed the deer.