And it came to pass in the city of slinking shadows where the deer and city council graze free; I planted tomato plants intending to take advantage of the sun and rain to promote their growth.
This morning as I surveyed the garden I dropped to my knees inconsolable in my despair at what I saw.
Like thieves in the night the deer had slunk into my garden in the dark and eaten the tomato plant flowers. No flowers, no tomatoes, hours and hours of work down the gullet. They had also devoured and decimated the trumpet vines and phlox flowers and anything else they could get their teeth around.
I do not blame the deer, they need to eat. But I definitely blame the Penticton City Council for their tardiness in dealing with the feral deer. Urban deer has been a serious problem in Penticton for years and the only solution that Council came up with was to transport the deer to the PIB reserve. There, to provide hunting opportunities for the locals, it was purported to be a very humane solution. Naturally, the idea went belly up.
The problem deer situation can be added to the water slide debacle as an inadequately handled issue by this council. Oblivious to public perception they had the temerity to vote themselves dental and health benefits with lofty contempt for the electorate. What brazenness, in another community they would probably be run out or laughed out of town on the backs of donkeys,
Take your pick.
In 1653 Oliver Cromwell told the English parliament, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
What would he have said to the Penticton City Council? Not for publication.
Jim Calvert
Penticton