Tangerine Peels

Living out in the country, as I do, I have developed a habit of pitching apple cores, fruit peelings, and trimmings from vegetables out my back door.  All manner of creatures will snack on them: birds, chipmunks, deer, fox, and unnamed visitors in the night.  Mind you, I would never do this at my cabin.  My cabin is bear country.  I have no desire to attract bears.

Last week, I purchased a bag of tangerines.  I have been eating three each morning, after peeling them and pitching the peelings out into the snow. 

Yesterday, three mule deer nosed through my back yard and scarfed up the peels.

The deer suffered a pretty miserable summer in preparation for this winter.  Montana, according to our local newspaper, endured the fourth driest year on record.  My tiny corner of Montana did worse than that.  We had exactly two rain storms reach us over the entire year.  I watched storms swab at the mountains and valley all around me, but they never quite reached here.

By early summer, the earth around my house turned to powder.  Most telling was what happened with the needle-and-thread grass.  Let me amend that.  What didn’t happen is important.  The needle-and-thread grass did not produce seeds this year.

Not one seed.

We called needle-and-thread grass “spear grass” as kids.  In late summer, a walk through grassy fields would require a session of removing spear grass seeds from your socks and clothing afterwards.  They stick to everything.

Nothing this year.

I know feeding the deer is a bad idea, but I have had far worse.

—Mitchell Hegman