It seems like eons ago that I started some cutting sunflowers from seed in the Hawthouse with great hopes of having a pretty row of them out front this summer. I even bought special little stakes for them once they were ready to transplant. They were doing really well, too. See?
They all had buds on them, and I was so excited that they were about to bloom. I forgot one thing, though. ELK. How could I have forgotten the reason I never plant anything outside of the garden fences? Did I just look out front after 12 years and suddenly think I should put some flowers out there? I guess I did. I'm a little embarrassed about that. This is what happened to all the burgeoning blooms:
Every single flower, bitten neatly off. Too crestfallen to pull them all up, I left them and dubbed it the Morticia Addams garden. Then an interesting thing happened, and they started to leaf out at the tops again, and then to form new buds! One morning, we heard the driveway alarm sound, and in came a group of elk cows with four calves. Sweet, adorable babies -- awwwwwwwwwww. Spotted little cuties that did THIS:
Pulled the stalks up by their roots!! Shaking my fist at the little darlings, I vowed revenge when they were bigger and juicier. "Eat up while you can!" I shouted. "Fatten up on my flowers, little Hansel or Gretel, mwahahahaha!" They missed a couple, though, the rascals.
And I have, indeed, had the last laugh.
------------------------------------------------------------Remember these Mammoth Sunflowers I showed you awhile back? They've been kept safe inside the fence.
They have escaped the snippy jaws of death. Humans 1, Elk 0.
Bring it, cud-chewers.
They have escaped the snippy jaws of death. Humans 1, Elk 0.
Bring it, cud-chewers.
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