At the break of dawn, as Aurora’s blush still lingered on the horizon, I marched toward my garden with clenched jaw and a storm behind my eyes. Each morning had become a ritual of disappointment—new wounds upon my once-thriving patch: jagged bites in my carrots, lettuce leaves shredded like parchment, a bean vine sliced with surgical precision. Where I once sowed dreams of harvest, suspicion now took root.
I deployed every defense I could muster. A motion-triggered light flared like a lighthouse against the dark tide of trespassers, while a stealthy trail cam nestled among the vines, waiting to expose the nocturnal saboteur. I braced for raccoons, foxes, even desperate deer. But nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for the truth that awaited. What I uncovered didn’t just challenge my assumptions… it shattered them. And in their place, it planted something unexpected, something tender. A revelation that reshaped my heart, root and stem.
