Oh, Deer

I really enjoy our neighbors the deer.  I've been following the growth of three fawn this season from our resident doe, watching the antlers grow on the bucks and even followed the death and subsequent consumption of one young'un by coyotes, eagles and a turkey vulture.  Since there is no hunting in Kingston, our deer are particularly fearless and will graze peacefully around MFW paying no mind to us, our power tools or the pneumatic nail gun which sounds remarkably like a shotgun.  They go about their lackadaisical way, yards away, with only the occasional curious glance.

The problem arises when they start eating our fruit trees.  This summer they have decimated our cherry, peach and plum tree.  They ate all five of our apples!  Curiously, they have no intentions toward the fig.  Since all of these tress are recent transplants, we never intended on a harvest, but I've been concerned that they won't have all of the nutrients they'll need to store for the winter if this goes on.

Today I bought a deer repellent spray.  And... it's horrible!  It's essentially reconstituted porcupine blood in a spray bottle.  It smells horrendous!  It clogged, er, clotted up instantly, requiring two cleanings just to spray our six trees!  And god forbid the wind changes while you're applying this gore, as it did today, you wind up looking like an extra from a horror movie.  Alright, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do have an unacceptable amount of porcupine blood on me and my clothes, and the smell is nauseating.  It also leaves me wondering if we might not be trading our deer visits for an opportunity to get to know our resident black bear better than we might like.

Do you have deer issues?  Do you put up barricades instead?  Does hair from a barber shop really do the trick?  We need a new method.  I will NOT be reapplying this ghastly stuff.

Now, we really strive to keep all of the content here at Mellish Fields West original and topical, but come on, isn't this cute?