The deer have declared war!

Year One is not about perfection, it’s about learning.

YEAR ONE IS NOT ABOUT PERFECTION, IT’S ABOUT LEARNING.

*quietly sobs while tucking new sunflower babies into the soil*

Friends, the deer have won a battle.

I don’t know if it was naïveté, hubris, ignorance, or all three, but I genuinely thought my little patch of sunflowers would survive in a giant open field in Athens. “Knumbskull” may be the appropriate term here.

At first they just nibbled a few flowers. “Oh,” I thought, “at least it was only the fun sunflowers outside the cages.” Cute. Adorable. Foolish.

What they were actually doing was testing the waters and inviting friends to a fresh sunflower salad party.

And then they completely decimated my first planting.

About a month from harvest. Gone. Every single flower top missing.

I truly don’t have the vocabulary to describe the feeling of pulling up to a garden you’ve poured time, money, sweat, and hope into only to discover a botanical crime scene. Lord help me, my soul briefly left my body. Once I could breathe again, I’m fairly certain I spoke in tongues (easily interpreted by any angry Frenchman).

I sat in my car in 93-degree heat after a full work day trying to decide if I should just give up. I could practically hear generations of farmers snickering at how cute it was that I thought I’d get away with this.

But then something interesting happened.

Grit. Determination. Spite. Hard to say exactly.

I got out of the car, burned the 125 holes I came there to burn, planted the 125 seeds I came there to plant, and decided I would simply figure out how to keep those agents of chaos away from my flowers.

The terrors persist, but so do I.

So Year One continues. Now the challenge becomes: fence? Netting? Taser?

Until God drops 10 fenced acres into my lap, I’ll keep planting seeds and learning as I go.

I don’t give up easily. That’s a trait I got from my mother.

And these flowers are for her.