Munchies

Our latest addition – Veadinha (“Little Deer”)

She came to us because her mother died in a tragic accident.   Our relatives couldn’t raise her, so they brought this little orphan to us. How could you say “no” to those big brown eyes?

Veadiniha (“Little Deer”) is too young to put straight out into the pasture to feed.  She’s been living within the fenced house part of our farm and getting daily milk bottle feedings. Cute as heck. Also ravenous. She’s moving to solid food and has discovered a sweet tooth for my portulaca and purslane plants (judging from the unexpected, strong lemon scent that wafted in our windows one afternoon I suspect she also sampled the lemon verbena, but thankfully it wasn’t to her liking). She has munched every last one down to a nubbin. Which is a real shame, because they’re one of the few flowers that thrive and bloom during our dry summers.

I pulled out the roots of the devastated plants and babied 90% of them back to life (a few casualties, but in general thank god it’s a hardy plant!). I’ll resettle them once Veadinha is grown and moved back to the larger herd.

A refugee camp has been established on the countertop of our outdoor kitchen to preserve the survivors. They share space with my precious strawberry plant that the chickens would love to peck, the cutter ants would love to trim, and the farmcat would love to use as a litter box.

Let’s hope she doesn’t take a liking to anything else–it’s getting crowded around here!

The Refugees