Naked Gardening and Naked Gardening Day

[nib]

Wow, Blue train!
Deer in the suburbs?  Where abouts do you live?.
There are plenty of deer in the uk but the chances of finding one in a suburban garden is tiny-fractional!
John

Not zero though! Once when I was staying overnight in my father's house in Walton-on-Thames, I saw a big deer in the back garden, late evening. I was indoors looking through the glass doors and it was about 20 metres away on the lawn. It looked at me and I looked at it for a few minutes, but when I turned to pick up a camera it ambled away into another garden.

House was usually empty, father in nursing home.

nib

[Greenbare Woods]

The urban fax tends to kill pets and cause a lot of mess the way they forage in dustbins.
I suspect that they are also a traffic problem as they only live for about three years.

We get a lot of coyotes in these parts.  Perhaps the coyotes keep the foxes out.   The environmentalists are re-introducing wolves.  The coyotes will have challenges in the next few years.   And they may start controlling urban deer. 

Actually the urban deer aren't as bad as urban moose.   A moose is just BIG, and STUPID.  And, their first reaction when confused is to CHARGE. 

[eyesup]

I remember reading an article years ago from the midwest where there had been restrictions of how many deer were allowed during hunting season. The locals wanted the quotas raised because there were so many in the wild that the pressure on them for food was pushing them into the communities. People were having to run them out of their yards.

Another example of how human management seems to eventually make things more of a problem. If you want to manage wildlife, you can’t just pass some rules and call it a day. It requires constant attention. Mother Nature will find a way to flourish.

Duane

[eyesup]

The urban fox, however, is a constant problem.

For a bit there JOhn and BlueTrain, I was thinking of a different sort of fox as a urban pest!

When we used to camp more, when the kids were both in Scouts, we would go to Death Valley. At the entrance kiosk there was a warning sign for campers and RV’rs that said;

“Do not leave your pet tied at camp if you go on an outing”.
Coyotes = 10
Fluffy     = 0

We would hear them at night yipping as they ranged about looking for opportunity.
A tied up pet can’t even run away. It was free food for the original inhabitants.
People amaze me sometimes.

Duane

[eyesup]

Dang, Reuben! I was exhausted after reading that. I had to go and take a nap.

Duane

[eyesup]

Well naked gardening day is still about a month off, but today we were planting herbs and about 5 or 6 different kind of peppers. Peppers! Yum!

It was getting warmish, abt. 90° or so and a perfectly clear sky. I was digging holes for the peppers when I noticed that my t-shirt was sticking to me. And I thought, “What the heck am I wearing this for?”

Off it came and I hung it on the lattice with the shorts and shoes right behind. My wife had walked around the house to empty a trash can in the bin and when she came back there I was starkers working in the planter and all she said was, “Comfy?” Of course. So I spent the next 3 – 3-1/2 hrs. happily digging in the dirt with the sun beatin’ down and wind blowing just enough to keep the sweat evaporating.

The area where the planter is located is pretty well shielded but on a couple occasions she asked if I would retrieve something from another part of the yard.

The fact she asked me but didn’t blink at me walking across the yard in full daylight was unexpected. I did so with a little hesitancy, I wasn’t sure anyone was home next door. One house has a good view of the back part of the yard, yet the shades seemed to be pulled.

If there are no issues, maybe I try this again a little bit at a time.
I love these little advances with her!

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Sounds like there was a little advancement for yourself, too.

Tanman increments.
Jbee

[eyesup]

Yeah I was thinking the same.
Hey Larry, we still use your method!

Duane

[BlueTrain]

I've seen dogs in our neighborhood that would not answer to the name of Fluffy and were bigger than any coyote and most wolves.

Did you ever notice that some sheep dogs look like wolves and other sheep dogs look like sheet?

[Greenbare Woods]

I saw this article about Naked Gardening Day and the law on another forum.  Its specific to law in the UK.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/planning-gardening-naked-heres-what-1463932



Basically it says that if you are minding your own business naked its not against the law in the UK.

Sexual Offenses Act?
Public Nuisance?
Outraging Public Decency?

"A naturist whose intention is limited to going about his or her lawful business naked will not be guilty of this offence,"  Leicester Mercury.

So garden away.   

[JOhnGw]

That is a very good layman's description of the law in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland are less tolerant but the general drift is about the same.
Nobody that British Naturism has supported has been found guilty of any offence with which they have been charged.

[BlueTrain]

My wife probably would dare let me do such a thing these days (it was different once), even if we had the privacy. But our neighbor across the street in a rental house five or ten years ago was arrested for being seen nude in the windows of their house. The details are sketchy and can't be verified now but he did at least admit to the offense (offence). There was a complaint and the police acted. Although he was arrested and presumably charged, I don't know how it turned out.

I learned about it when I came home from work one evening and found the street full of news vehicles and police cars. I thought for sure someone had been murdered. It wasn't but I guess it was the next best thing, news-wise.

[John P]

Quoting myself from a Facebook group that JohnGw and I are both on:

That Crown Prosecution Service document looks optimistic at first sight, but it's written with some weasel words. "It will normally be appropriate" is fine until something ab-normal or in-appropriate occurs! And a naturist's "lawful business" is fine too, but it might be called unlawful under Section 5 of the Public Order Act. Steve Gough was convicted for breaking it, for instance, and I'm sure he'd deny ever intending to offend anyone. Being utterly indifferent to whether people were offended, that's something else again. So the Public Order Act is fairly benign, but you can't say "I'm not trying to offend anybody" and just ignore it.

[BlueTrain]

There are a fair number of laws, I suspect, written in such a way as to give law enforcement officers broad authority to basically maintain public order. Sometimes they are used to remove "undesirable" people from the scene, or at least from the community, with reasons like "vagrancy." Disturbing the peace is another broad term. I don't see how you could determine what someone intends to do, but it's usually pretty obvious what they actually are doing. They're all ways of maintaining community standards, but only from the standpoint of a certain segment of the community--those with political power. The numbers involved are irrelevant but circumstances will be different from place to place. I'm sure there are places with no perceivable community standards.

[eyesup]

I've seen dogs in our neighborhood that would not answer to the name of Fluffy and were bigger than any coyote and most wolves.

We were at Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley once and saw a well fed coyote ranging out at the edges of the public picnic area that was almost as big as our 95 lb. shepherd/akita mix. At any rate, coyotes run in packs and no dog of any size would have a chance.

We’ve camped in the desert many times and you can hear them yipping and running at night.
Talkin’ ta each other. After something no doubt.

Duane