A Thief in the Orchard

August 27, 2011. It’s that time of year. The time of year when there are apples and pears in the orchard. The deer – Whitetail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) - like them and they’ll even stand on their hind legs to pick fruit from the trees. And we have a bumper crop this year. On a couple of occasions recently we’ve arrived home near dusk and caught them in the act.

Who, me?
The tree is tall and, even on her hind legs, she couldn’t reach fruit on the tree.

I’m just scrounging around on the ground for pears that have fallen from the tree. They’re fair game.

But they’re hard. I can’t just chew them.

I have to roll them around in my mouth to try and break them up.

It’s a lot of work to eat these. If there weren’t so many of them and they weren’t worth it, and if winter wasn’t coming, I’d just go somewhere else. (You can see the pear in her mouth in this photo).
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