Tag Archives: nature

Blossom of Tewkesbury: a white tailed deer

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white tailed deer #2This is a generic picture i.e. not Blossom

I watched a Nature program about white tailed deer on WNED, a PBS station the other day. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-private-life-of-deer/full-episode/8278/ A hundred years ago, there were only one million white tailed deer in the U.S. Today there are thirty million, just a little under the human population of Canada. Here in Toronto, a small herd of them lives half a block down my street in an urban forest. I have written about them, but I am always too stunned when I chance upon them to get a photo. https://115journals.com/2013/07/14/secrets-of-the-urban-woods/

In Cayuga Heights, New York, there are 100 hundred white tailed deer for every square mile. The optimum number would be 5. The Nature program shows how they interact with the human population.

I was blown away by the story of one of them, Blossom, who was rescued as an injured fawn by a family in Tewkesbury, New Jersey and spent her life alternating between a life in the wild and visits to the family home where she was welcome to stroll in the kitchen door. (Blossom’s story is told by Anna Carver at about minute 46.) She wore a colorful collar asking hunters not to shoot her. And I gather, she eventually gave birth to twin fawns. Anna has also posted a tribute to Blossom on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52z5xyHvs3U

white tailed deer running #2

 

 

 

Bad Titles: journal 118 protests

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Like George Orwell, I have chosen a title that has overtaken itself. He thought 1984 was sufficiently removed from 1948 that it represented a future where Big Brother watching your every move seemed believable. But, oh George, try teaching that book in 1984 or 1993 or 2012. It is about the past now, in more ways than one. (Thank you closed circuit TV, Google, Facebook and internet surveillance.)

I knew that lesson and yet I went ahead and called my blog, 115journals.com. Journal 118 wants to act as spokesperson for itself and 116 and 117. Journal 118 is a mature and confident speaker, about to retire from active duty and hand the daily grind over to 119.

Still a bit of a whiner: “Look at all I did for you, getting you through a July of heath issues and an August of intense family vacation. And who gets the glory, 115? What did she ever do for you?

It’s just a matter of chance, I counter. Orwell reversed the digits of the year he wrote the book. I was writing in journal 115 when I started the blog.

But 118 is seriously miffed, although partly mollified by the fact I reread its whole heartfelt tale. True I found there the essence of the summer, we are fast losing here in our northern city. It caught the swallows hunting at dusk, the crickets at dark and the glory of the Farmer’s Market at Wychwood Barns.

Please accept my appreciation, 118. I hope you will be mollified by my promise to issue a “Best of 118” in the near future.