I really enjoyed this - so much so that I read it in a single sitting! There's something very gentle about this collection of short essays, and seeping through it all is Moses' love for and interest in the animals that live around her. Not just wild animals, though the title would seem to indicate this. Moses is as attached to dogs and goats and horses as much as she is to deer and wild turkeys and raccoons. The basic throughline here, though, is that she's given up trying to create a garden which keeps these animals out, and is instead focused on creating a garden that will help to sustain the local ecology. Yet there are many trips into the neighbourhood and the wider city (San Francisco) and even some out of it. Don't expect a consistent narrative. These are, rather, meditations - beautifully polished little pieces of writing that speak to the emotional attachment that humans can have for nature, and how to nurture that capacity.

The library's going to make me give this back, so I shall have to hunt down a copy of my own, because this is one of those books that I can see myself dipping into again and again.