It's a jungle out here

Last night I turned in early, not to sleep but to read in bed for an hour or so. As I was doing this -- with the curtains drawn but the windows open, cat on the bed beside me -- I started to hear some sounds in our side yard.

One sound was especially loud, as though a large-ish creature had bumped into something (probably the wagon -- the water table is now in the front yard). The cat's head went up, as did mine. "I think there's something in the side yard," I called to Rocket Boy. He came in, turned on the overhead light, and looked out, but saw nothing and there were no more sounds.

It might have been a cat, or possibly a raccoon. But because we live VERY close to the mountains, there are a lot of other things it could have been, such as a deer, a bear, a coyote, a mountain lion...

This afternoon I was on the floor of the twins' room, hunting for stray socks under their beds (I was about to do their laundry), when I heard a commotion outside. The twins were yelling, Rocket Boy was calling my name. Laboriously, I dragged myself up off the floor and went to the front door. "What is it?" I asked, in not the nicest tone of voice.

"Do you want to see the deer?"

Oh! All irritation forgotten, I ran for my camera. The deer was in our next door neighbor's backyard, or technically just behind the fence.

Can you see it, in the center back of the photo? Here's a close-up:

It was a doe (obviously). I suppose she'd come down from the mountains, though that involves crossing a very busy street (Broadway), and I don't really see the point -- there's plenty to eat in the mountains after all the rains we've had, why bother to risk your life crossing Broadway just to eat the weeds in people's gardens? But I don't know how deer's thought processes work, so I guess I shouldn't criticize.

Later I took a few minutes to do some pruning in our backyard -- our backyard is such a disaster after four years away, it's not even funny. I don't think any of our three housesitters had any idea where to begin with our yard, and so they just didn't try. It's a jungle. 

All the little trees have become big trees. There are (at least) two new elm trees, and I don't want any more elm trees. Our little oak tree has grown tall enough to bump into our big elm tree (which needs a big limb removed). All the junipers have grown and spread so that you almost can't walk in the yard.

The only thing that isn't growing is the lawn, which is a weedy, barren mess. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want our yard to look like our neighbor's yard (they use pesticides on that perfectly green lawn). I like some mess, I like to have places for birds to take cover. But our yard has really gotten out of hand. It looks like it belongs to an elderly couple who no longer have the ability to take care of it. We are getting older, but we are not elderly.

What we need to do is hire someone to come in and cut and cut and cut, but we probably won't spend the money. I'll just keep hacking away when I have a moment, and maybe one of these days we'll have a big pruning party (though RB hates to prune).

But until then, I probably won't spend a lot of time out back in the dark. Too many places for creatures to hide.