And The Saga Continues....

So there I was finally taking down my Christmas lights...yes, Christmas lights.  I know Christmas was a month ago, but I was waiting for a 50+ degree day to do it.  Oh, yeah...we've had like ten of those since Christmas.  Fine...I'm lazy.  Anyway, back to the situation at hand.  So I was taking down the Christmas lights on this unseasonably warm January day in beautiful SoDak.  Will was playing ever so quietly and contently in the yard next to me...so quietly that I hardly even noticed him.  And then I look over.  And I freak out.  He's mowing the lawn with his bubble-blowing mower (that I don't think ever blew bubbles while we've owned it) and as he's doing so he's kicking up a TON of deer poop!  Aaaahhhhhh!!  The deer poop!  And that's when I realize the yard is 100 times worse than last year.  There was seriously not one square foot that didn't have at least one deer turd on it.  So the Christmas lights will have to wait one more day...I guess I can't put the poop off until spring...

I've posted about our deer poop problem before, but this is getting to the point of ridiculous!  I look around at our neighbors and none of them have the same problem...and I never see them out picking up poop.  What is it with our yard?!?!?  I see them out there at night...snoozing the night away.  They don't startle when we drive up...they don't budge...they don't even care.  They just look at you with their...deer...eyes and say, "I'm gonna poop in your yard.  As soon as you shut your garage door..."  Grrrrrr!

So this is how we spent our Sunday afternoon.  No naps for us here at the Schmidt house...just a leisurely afternoon of picking up deer feces.  Lovely.  Have I ever told you how much I love having an engineer for a husband?  My approach to picking up poop...put on some gloves and pick it up.  Works okay with big chunks, but the pellets are nightmares.  So then I try the shovel...better, but still...  He comes right out with a rake...duh!  Yeah, that's what I was gonna do, but I, uh...  Common sense often escapes me.  I'm convinced his ability to see the obvious is one of the reasons God gave him to me.  He's so smart. :)

But out of every difficult situation... A bonus for the afternoon - Will helped!  My super frustrating deer poop problem actually turned into a positive lesson on work ethic for our four-year-old.  As I'm working harder than I've worked in a long time (all the while plotting against these deer because they've not only messed up my Sunday afternoon, I have blisters from the rake), I can hear Gregg talking to Will about the yard work and how it is hard, but it has to be done.  Will just kept on raking, and raking, and raking.  I'm convinced this is another reason God gave Gregg to me... He didn't complain about the problem...he just dealt with it and along the way taught our son to do likewise. 

An hour and a half went by and we filled our garbage can...thank goodness Monday is garbage day.  I felt pretty good about our accomplishments for the afternoon...then I realized...we've only done a third of the yard.  Schmidts 1 - deer 105.  I felt defeated.  Now I've always been one to say, "I don't mind if people hunt, I just couldn't shoot an animal myself."  But it was at that moment, after all our hard work and still so much left to do, that I thought, "Bambi, if you and I met in the forest...let's just say it wouldn't be pretty."  Until next time...