Oh Deer !

This was a lovely rosette of rose campion in the flower bed right in front of the house. I placed it there last summer. It's a biennial, so you get to look at a very promising little rosette for the first year, and see the gray-green foliage and velvety magenta flowers the second. Obviously, it looked delicious to one of those lovely brown creatures with the big eyes and the even bigger appetite. I'll place a cage around it, but I may be locking the barn after the horse is gone. Anyway, it deserves the chance. If I haven't learned anything else about gardening out in the middle of an old field, I have learned that we are not alone here.

I'm so glad I took several pictures yesterday. Today the weather is foul with freezing rain falling, and ice under foot. It's a good day to be inside.