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This is one sign of spring we all want to avoid at all costs

By Chuck Hunt - Editor | Apr 2, 2023

I have a crappy yard. A very crappy yard.

If you know me, and know where I live, I know what you are thinking right now.

“No, Chuck, you certainly do not have a crappy yard. You have a very nice yard. Your Hostas and other perennials are gorgeous and all the flowers your wife Pam plants every year are awesome. You definitely do not have a crappy yard – you have a beautiful yard.”

You might be thinking that, but you are wrong. My yard is crappy.

Now that the snow has almost all melted away, I was out in my yard last weekend. And let me tell, it was crappy. Not only was the winter particularly hard on it, there is a ton of a variety of poop in my yard.

No, seriously.

From dogs being walked, to a herd of feral cats, to rabbits, squirrels and enough deer to do a remake of the Bambi movie, my yard has been turned into an outdoor bathroom. It is disgusting.

Remember that storm we had earlier in the winter? Gale force winds dropped tree branches all over Blue Earth. I had a lot of them fall in my yard. Mine were piled up awaiting spring and the reopening of the City of Blue Earth’s Brush Site. Last weekend I sawed up all the limbs, because they had ceased to be encased in a tomb of frozen snow and ice and snowplow piles and I could get at them.

The deer had munched on the branches – and left some piles of ‘deer droppings’ as gifts in return. Many piles.

My neighbor Don also had large branches and limbs down in his backyard as well. So, I sawed those up, too. And my, oh my, those piles of gifts from the deer were five times the size of the ones in my yard. They were huge!

I took some photos of it on my phone. I would show you, but running photos of giant piles of deer poop in the Register was deemed by some to be, well, gross.

So, instead of pics of poop, I will add a photo of wildlife to this week’s column. One is a photo of deer in the yard of a home on Main Street in Blue Earth that I took this past winter. The other one is of a bunch of geese on 10th Street in Blue Earth, just two blocks west of Main Street. They are in the area where the city of Blue Earth snow removal crew dumps all of their snow.

So far, I have not noticed goose poop in my yard.

Another spot to see a huge flock of ducks, geese and maybe some swans is in a flooded farm field along the south side of I-90, just west of the Frost/Easton exit.

I did not ever realize what a wildlife area Blue Earth was, until I moved here some 15 years ago. But it is.

Just a couple of Sundays ago, we were having Sunday brunch in our house when we looked out the window and saw three deer standing in the intersection of 10th and Main ­- at 10:30 in the morning. Then they sauntered (yes, sauntered) west on 10th Street, eventually taking the sidewalk over to Nicollet Street, before heading west to the same spot the flock of geese was located.

All I have to say is that I am grateful the deer did not stop in my yard to drop off a gift on their way by. At least, not this time.

OK, I apologize for writing such a crappy column this week. I promise I will try and do better next week.