Protecting The Environment

I got mad when they made it legal to hunt neighborhood deer with a crossbow. They don’t run; they’re used to us .

They’re gentle, too. I’ve watched them nibbling leaves at the park, and I’ll tell whoever’s nearby, “shh look, deer.”

They were in my neighbor’s yard the other night. They had treated his garden like a buffet and ate everything except the winter Daphnes, which are poisonous. Those they trampled .

My back ached as I looked over at my new garden; the empty fifty-pound bags of compost, fertilizer, and mulch, the dirty shovel and pickaxe, and thought,

Hmm, crossbow.

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Illustration by Steve Spetseris