Lots of Activity in Collegeville last evening.

Lot's of activity in Collegeville last evening. At around 6:00 two very energetic rabbits entertained us with a shocking display of copulation on the lawn just outside the patio doors. The male of the pair has a big piece of hide torn off his butt, perhaps by a fox. Yet there he is, out in the open, giving testimony that love conquers all, even fear of the fox. Or perhaps he's been nibbling at the watermellon rind in the mulch heap.

Later in the evening two cute little fawns gamboled happily on the lawn very near the daylillies whose buds they have been nipping off despite the fact that daylillies are one of the few plants which have usually survived the depredations of their verminous ancestors. I smiled at their carefree antics because, unbeknownst to them, at the 4th of July picnic I gave permission for a new bow hunter to come and check out their haunts. May he plunge his arrows deep into their vitals, eat their raw livers and feast on their daylily bud fattened haunches.

Which reminds me, I hope last year's very successful crossbow hunter also returns, but the last time I saw him he was pretty resigned about the prognosis of his cancer. During a meeting in the woods at the end of the winter he told me he had harvested six of the hooved vermin and he was hoping for another. Bravo that he's allowed to use a crossbow under some kind of disability clause in the hunting rules. What an upbeat and brave fellow. And what a public servant to be quietly culling the vast piratical deer herd between bouts of chemotherapy. Whatever - I hope he survives, and I hope he and his family and his whole neighborhood feast on venison again this winter.