Title is from “Written Deer” by Maggie Smith.
This past week, I did another writing retreat. Rockvale was having a workshop or something, so instead of going back I rented an AirBnB for the week so I could just write and not be distracted by all the things in my house that require attention. It was less productive than Rockvale (just shy of 8,000 words rather than over 10,000) but was also a day shorter (I came home last night, Friday night, rather than coming home on a Sunday morning). It wasn’t as good an environment – the AirBnB that Alan got me was fine, but it didn’t have picturesque views or walking trails or other writers to talk to – but it was fine to allow me to focus and give me the mental space to even be able to do anything creative.
The other thing I did this week was obsess about the expulsion of Reps. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), Justin Jones (D-Nashville), and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis). The resolution was filed on Monday and they voted Thursday to expel the Justins (both black, but Johnson, a white woman, narrowly survived the vote). Although I’m in Nashville, Jones is not my Rep (I’m in Vincent Dixie’s riding) but I’m still feeling pretty salty about it.
I got home and looked at trail cam footage from the last two weeks. I saw this deer a couple of months ago walking in my neighbor’s yard and thought she was injured, so I was relieved when the trail cam picked her up to know that she had survived! I don’t think she was injured the first time I saw her at all – what I thought was limping was her uneven gait from having one leg quite a bit shorter than the others, presumably a birth defect or maybe the result of an injury. This is five trail cam videos stitched together in chronological order:
This afternoon we went up the back hill to see how the trees we planted are doing, and they are growing like gangbusters! All but one of the elderberry bushes have at least one little leaf on them and the cherry trees all have a bunch of leaves:
