Scratch that

So no risotto for me this weekend. I am still prepared, but my motivation began to flag Sunday after spending a big chunk of the afternoon outside. Examining the deer damage. Our lilac now appears to be only slightly healthier than a the favorite chew toy of a St. Bernard. The hemlock that had finally begun to rebound from the last deer attack 3 years ago now looks like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Though with potentially fewer needles. I will say that I am a bit tired of changing around the shrubbery. I am beginning to feel the rage that some bird lovers feel against squirrels who eat the bird food. I am trying not to let it get out of hand though. And I am finding that my very expensive tomato ladders which do me no good because I can't grow tomatoes, do a fine job of deterring deer when you remember to put them out. Though I would rather deter some of those deer right into my (non-existent) freezer. And I found all this after placing an order with Vintage Virginia Apples for some new fruit trees to plant this winter. Hope/stupidity springs eternal though I suspect I have just purchased an additional $150 worth of antler scrapers.

Instead of risotto yesterday I made white bean and sausage soup with some chard using home made chicken stock. I must admit it was pretty satisfying. Simple and one of the 15 dishes that I can make with my eyes closed. I really MUST expand. Like her. I think her blog idea is brilliant. And her situation, um, somewhat familiar. I DO NOT have 100 cookbooks though. Really. Unless magazines count. You can't really count those though. They are slim. And if you rip the pages out, you can get rid of MANY of the pages. So they don't count. Right?

In other news, my first seed catalog arrived today (note to self, when this counts as news, you need to get out more). Can you believe it? Really, someone must be trying to capitalize on this economic downturn stuff. I read an article which said that 21% of Americans were going to be planting a garden this year. If that happens, I expect more people are going to think that ground hogs are not so cute and that deer, despite being beautiful, really need to be eaten - at least some of them.