Well, that's . . . one way to wake up in the morning

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Lately I've had a lot of deer in my yard. And because I've read the excellent The Beast in the Garden, I am constantly on the look-out for the cougars which are sure to one day follow them into town, move on from deer to pets, and then start eyeing me and thinking about hollowing out my chest cavity. Because that's what happens. I feel pretty confident though that, unlike the good people of Boulder, the people of North Logan are less likely to accept cougar as new neighbors. Even college athletics is stacked against the cougars, given the (one-sided) antipathy that Aggies harbor towards BYU. So you're just really not welcome, cougs. That's all I'm saying. 

When I got the Tiny Dark Lord up from his nap yesterday, I saw a group of deer out in the garden so we stepped outside to check them out. There was a buck, a few does, and two precious little (big) babies. They were very majestic and stuff, and TDL was enthralled. I love, love, love that within my neighborhood I can introduce TDL to ducks, deer, horses, goats, sheep, cows, and precious tiny ponies. (Note to cougars: I do not want to meet you. Seriously.) One time GH took the baby for a walk and they almost got introduced to a skunk, which was not part of his plan. In our previous digs, the only wildlife available to show our son were the two mean dogs that kept getting out of their yard and whatever was growing on whatever biological puddle our next-door neighbor left on the landing. So yeah, I'd call this an improvement.

This morning, though, I woke up and when I came downstairs the first thing I saw out my living room window was a dead deer in the front yard. I needed to reassure myself that this was not, in fact, a cougar-related incident (the deer seemed to still be whole). People drive pretty fast on my street, so I'm sure there was an accident sometime in the night. I called dispatch and they sent someone over to take it away. 

Except now I wonder if I should have asked around to see if anybody wanted the deer. I bet there are uncles of GH's who would have come and taken it and put the meat in one of their many, many freezers. I don't know what the rules are about that--is there some kind of "finders keepers" rule when it comes to roadkill, or is that not allowed because they don't want people intentionally running the poor things down with their minivans? Anybody know the answer?