I included the next paragraph just to get your attention.  I want you to read the little story I  wrote about what unfolded in my front lawn yesterday. 

My writing club said sex in a story is always an attention getter.  So, I went to a writers dictionary and looked up what happens when a male deer reaches sexual maturation. Puberty is defined as the period of life during which growth of the internal sex organs occur.

Now, what does puberty have to do with my story – maybe nothing but you be the judge after reading the story:

MONA, GROANA, ANTS, & GRASSHOPPERS – OH MY! 

Mona: “Hey, Good Morning – Where have you been all summer?”

Groana: “With other bucks.  We have been out in the center of the Island since the snow & ice melted in the in the river this spring.  We have not seen a person all summer and not a single doe came by.  We have had a real hard time, though, finding enough to eat.  It has been hotter and dryer than normal. There was hardly any grass around out there. We have been eating twigs for the last month. Ugh”

Mona: “Oh my we does have had a great year – There are 5 houses here that feed us every day – Apples, corn, mineral blocks, ….. a real paradise – We did not spend a single day looking for food.  The neighborhood just makes food appear every day. One problem is cars stop, as they drive by, to take our picture while the people are putting out food for us.  Sometimes we walk over to the car and get a handout of brand new kind of snacks, like nuts, cookies, and yesterday I even got a cheese sandwich. I did put up with them petting my nose. It is a small price to pay for all that food. Beautiful way to live.”

Groana: “Yea, but like the fable:” “The ants were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?’ He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”  

Groana: “I think you does have been singing all summer.  While we bucks have been learning to live on twigs like we will have to do all winter. We will be ready. Like the grasshoppers, you does will not be ready. You will be in real trouble this winter when the people go home and you have to fend for yourself finding food. You won’t know how to do it”

My question to the reader: Do you know what is happening here?  It is the start of rutting season for the deer Groana is in his second year  full puberty — Groana only came out of the back woods of the central Island because he wants to know where all the does are when rut is in full swing, November and December.

Mona: Batting her big brown eye lashes: “I am in no real trouble – I knew you would find me. You are so handsome, those big shiny antlers are so much bigger then last year and your rump mussels are so big and hard – you are the most handsome buck I have ever seen.  I will just stay with you and you will take care of me. Making sure I do not go hungry before you eat. I love you already and it is not even rutting season.”

Groana melts into a heap just as the front door opens and a women with a bucket of molasses covered corn and a few apples strolls to the front lawn leaving her larder of food behind for the deer.

Mona: “Do you know what those people do when they go back into the house – Sometimes I look into the window.  They go to that little window on the table and put our picture on it and some times they make that picture look funny – I think they give all their food to us and they do not have enough for themselves.  Starving like that makes their brain crazy – look here at some samples of what they create – maybe after I run off to the center of the Island with you those people will have enough food for themselves and they will not be so crazy.”

MONA: In the front lawn – That is me in the lower left.

Oh my: Their computer did funny things to the picture of me

Mona: What happened?

Do not starve your self like those people do

Not bad – It could be worse!

YIPES – I told you it could be worse!

The camera caught me giving thanks to the Lord at Sunday Morning  Communion for the wonderful summer the people have given me.

As you swing through life, Ponder the gifts given to you – and laugh and have fun however you spend your days – That could be your way of saying thanks.