Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Deer Ate My Crocus!

Not a metaphor. Last night, as I pulled into my driveway, I was struck by my favorite sight of the spring: the berm in front of my house covered with giant crocus (crocuses? croci?). Mostly purple and white, with a smattering of yellow, the bold colors—surrounded by the brilliant green of new growth on top of the dark mulch I laid last fall—seemed to glow in the gold, early-evening sunlight (god, I love daylight savings time).

This morning, the purple and white and yellow were gone, vanished. Standing on my porch, I thought the blooms had just closed up for the night, but it seemed too drastic a change from the evening before. When I got closer the truth became clear—some son-of-a-bitch, rat-bastard, greedy-ass deer ate my flowers! My first flowers of spring! The flowers that made me so happy last night are gone.

Again, not a metaphor. No greedy monster came in the night and ate my chances at being a mom. And it could be worse. A few years ago the deer came by and ate every bud off of my prize daylilies—on the same berm—killing my chances of getting any blooms that entire late summer and fall. The crocus would have been fading out in a couple of weeks anyway.

But it doesn’t have to be a metaphor to piss me off. It’s been a long, dark, cold, hard, painful winter for me. The coming of spring has been keeping me sane the past few weeks. And for me, spring is all about the bulbs blooming. Now the berm isn’t going to really be pretty until May (my giant daffodils have always been a disappointment), when my tulips bloom (provided, of course, that the deer don’t get to them). And yes, I will be spraying tonight. Fucking deer. They even nibbled on my new daylily foliage just breaking through. Must have been a tough winter for them, too, but I refuse to feel sorry for them.

Oh, oh, of course it’s a metaphor! (You had to know I’d get there eventually.) Because what I was really looking forward to this spring, what I’ve been waiting for since last August, was finally moving on with IVF, and getting an answer once and for all about whether I am going to bear a child. And that hope has been snatched away, pushed back into later in the year, as we battle the insurance company for coverage for super-expensive hormone treatment for J.

Or maybe it isn’t a metaphor, but just a piling on of disappointment and delay. At the end of last year, whenever I looked forward toward March, there were two bright spots on the horizon: finishing my chiropractic treatment in time for spring gardening, and starting IVF again. By the end of January, I knew that the chiropractic treatment was going to take much longer (and that any gardening would have to take place in the heat, humidity, and mosquito-terror of summer in the swamp), but I still thought we would soon be starting IVF. When we saw the doc in mid-February and learned that J’s sperm count had dropped to zero, and that it would be months before we even knew whether we could use his sperm, the only thing I had left to look forward to was my spring flowers. And now they, too, have been gobbled up.

Fucking deer. Assholes.

10 comments:

Darya said...

Sorry about the deer. I am also sorry that you've been delayed once again. How frustrating.

Spring officially begins tomorrow morning and although it doesn't seem possible right now, may this spring bring you hope and all good things possible.

one-hit_wonder said...

Oh my word, how frustrating. I hope that spring brings renewal in every other way. (But still, how frustrating!)

Nikki said...

How frustrating! We don't have deer where we live, but my garden enemies are snails. I had the exact same thing happen to me with a bunch of marigolds once - lovely flowers one evening, and over the next few days, the plants disappeared one by one! Now we have major snail poison liquids that we use! Darn it!

I'm sorry everything has been so delayed and out of control. Sounds a little like my life :-(

Good luck to you - I hope spring brings you the hope that you need, and I hope things sort out with your insurance company soon for J to start treatment!

Peeveme said...

Oh wow. that sucks...all of it. Everything unfair, frustrating part. I';m sorry. What about a motion detector light? (to scare the deer...Don't think it would help with the sperm)

Peeveme said...

What about a good ol' fashioned scare crow? Again, for the deer not the sperm. But then again, it can't be any less effective for the sperm than these months of expensive injections have been for his sperm.

Io said...

Damn deer.
On the bright side, when I saw that you had posted my entire spirit lifted. That is how much I like you.

Ms. J said...

Those deer are lucky they aren't in my state - they'd be somebody's dinner by now.

Shinejil said...

Hot pepper spray on the foliage. Lots of it. They also hate Irish Spring soap (and so do I). You can poke a hole in it and dangle it nearby. It's ugly as sin, but it worked for my next-door neighbor. I've even taken to tossing netting over certain crucial plants (like our strawberries, which they love to eat the leaves off of).

Okay, enough Midwestern assvice. Here's to some excellent daffodils and tulips this year, and a change of fortunes once the summer comes.

Barb said...

:(
xo

Me said...

I hate the deer too. For a similar reason. Fucking deer indeed.