Dueling Daisy Deer vs. Slippery Sheex Sheets

Daisy is checking out her new and interesting opponent!

The Oklahoma weather has been unusually warm for the month of April.  Even March seemed a little on the toasty side, but I have not minded the warmer temperatures.  I love the spring months, and look forward to the heat of summer.  I am a cold-blooded creature, and feel my best when Mr. Sun is beaming down on me.  When the weather warms up enough to green the landscape, one can find me outdoors from early morning until almost dark in the evening.  So it is that I have been in my element lately, planting my two vegetable gardens, weeding and cleaning up my herb beds all around the outside of the house (where they are handy to pick while I’m cooking) and grooming flowers and shrubs that surround the house and yard. I also can be found running the mower over the four acres immediately surrounding our house.  Already, I have logged about 25 hours of mowing in the month of March.  It is the reason my blog writing has taken a backseat lately.

The flapping and billowing sheets make Miss Daisy a little feisty!

Monday morning a stiff breeze blew and I decided it would be a great day to wash and hang bedding on the clothesline. The particular bedding I speak of is the expensive Sheex brand.  FD insisted on trying them since he tends to be on the warm side and radiates heat all night long.  These Sheex sheets are supposed to wick away moisture, breathe 50% better than cotton,  and transfer body heat better than any other fabric – having a cooling effect.  Made of 87% polyester and 13% spandex fabric blend, they are wrinkle-free, stretch to fit any mattress, and are soft to the touch.  FD loves them.  I, on the other hand, hate them.  Oh, they do feel lovely on the skin and keep one cool, but they also have a few negative aspects in my opinion.  For one, they don’t look great on the bed.  They do not smooth out nicely, rather the stretchiness makes them a bit difficult to get to lay just right while making the bed in the morning. Admittedly, this is not really a viable complaint, since the quilt on top of the bed covers up the Sheex so no one sees them anyway, but bear with me here.  Another gripe is that the fabric conforms, no – it CLINGS, to one’s body. Being a toss-and-turn-all-night-long person, I frequently find myself tangled up in them in the middle of the night.  Also, I usually wear a pair of socks to bed since my feet are constantly cold.  Socks and Sheex do not play well together at all, so my feet become entangled as well.  But my biggest complaint about the lovely Sheex sheets is with my hands.  I work outdoors all day, and I cook and bake a lot, so I have “working” hands, not smooth, supple “lady” hands.  I do wear gloves to garden and sometimes I remember to use gloves when I wash dishes, but most of the time my hands take a beating.  Rough and dry much of the time, my chapped hands catch as they rub along the Sheex, feeling scratchy and gross.  So to combat this, I slather a good dose of night cream on my hands and wear cotton gloves to bed.  But, alas, like with the socks, my gloved hands become tangled with the Sheex in no time.  Lastly, my dryer has a sensor to determine when clothes are dry but, for some reason, can never sense when the blasted Sheex sheets are dry. Consequently, I have found it is easiest just to dry the darn things outdoors on the clothesline after laundering where, on a nice breezy, sunny day, they take little time to dry. Thus was my mission this windy Monday morning.

And the bout begins! Are you ready to RUMBLE?!

Daisy deer had been down at the corn feeder early at first daylight.  I fed her a pear and did my usual grooming on her, picking off ticks and brushing her to remove some of her shedding hair.  As was becoming the usual, she suddenly turned and headed to the woods for the day.  I laughed a little at how independent she had become lately.  Anymore, Daisy doesn’t seem to care much about her morning fruit snack, but she did stop for a little corn at the feeder before taking off for the woods.  With Daisy gone, I felt it safe to hang the bedding out to dry in the morning breeze.

A lull in the breeze and not much action from the fitted sheet.

During their rehabilitation, we kept our little orphaned deer Daisy, and the injured deer Holly, in the deer pen just east of our home. I discovered early on that hanging laundry outside on the clothesline north of the house was a bad idea.  The flapping of clothes and sometimes erratic movement of the clothesline scared our girls badly.  However, once the deer were free after hunting season ended, I felt I could get back to enjoying my air-dried sheets and towels again, as long as I made sure Daisy was gone for the day before starting my laundry task.  So, after she headed to the woods Monday morning I pinned up the Sheex bedding and headed back in the house to start a load of towels.

The Sheex fights back prompting Daisy to close her eyes… just in case!!

Heading back out with my newly washed basket of towels in hand, I came around the corner of the house to find Daisy snooping around the clothesline, inspecting the Sheex bedding.  Seeing this, I quickly dropped the clothes basket and ran back inside for my camera.  On my return, I watched Daisy discover the new-found joy of these peculiar, flapping objects.  She seemed to delight in this new friend who was willing to play-fight with her, teasing her by flapping at her, then shifting and moving away and flying upward.  Hooves flailing wildly, she played back. In part, I was horrified to think she might shred the expensive Sheex sheets with her sharp little hooves.  But the other part of me that did not really like these sheets said, “Aw, just let it happen… you can always tell FD it was too late when you discovered Daisy hoofing the sheets”.  After a short time I could see the Sheex were not going to be shredded, and only wound up dirty from Daisy’s hoofing and the morning dew from the grass.  The sheets would have to be rewashed.

Aha!! Gotcha!

I took my towels back inside and put them in the dryer.  I rewashed the load of bedding and opted to run it through the dryer 2 or 3 times to get it dry.  Now that I know Daisy is no longer afraid of laundry flapping on the clothesline, I wonder just how often I will be able to enjoy my air and sun-dried clothing?  Will I have to wait until NEXT summer when Daisy will likely have her own baby and be a mother with other responsibilities?  Or will I try again, knowing I’ll have to monitor the clothesline more closely?  I am a little tempted to hang out an old bed sheet and see if Daisy might not just enjoy a little play with the dancing fabric!  Don’t we all get a little bit bored sometimes?  Aren’t we all a little bit curious about the oddity across the way and wonder what it is?  It did look like a lot of fun.

Doesn’t curiosity get the best of you sometimes?

Hmm… I wonder if the makers of Sheex would be interested to know their product can boast the durability feature of being hoof-proof?