Pests have been in my garden, and I know the culprits...four-legs, hooved, about yea tall, white tails...
I was resigned to them leaving deer ticks all over the yard. I didn't like it, but I managed to pull one off myself the other day without freaking out too badly. Sheer weight of tick biomass is slowly crushing my phobias.
And they munched my poor red chokecherry, but it was early in the season, and they've left them alone since--possibly because Kevin is much better about spreading large-omnivore-urine around on demand than my ex-husband. ("You're asking me to pee outside? Great!" I think this is a guy thing. ) So I thought we'd achieved a certain balance.
But now? Now it's ON.
Those bastards mutilated my oakleaf hydrangea. (one of our only native hydrangeas) I hadn't even gotten the thing in the ground yet, it's a big shrub (or was) from the farmer's market, awaiting the digging of a substantial hole, and they chomped it. They didn't even eat half of it, just chewed through the twigs, leaving leaves all over the ground. It's the destruction that they didn't even EAT that pisses me off the most.
Also, they reduced my strawberries to stubs. The occasional ripe strawberry had been gnawed by squirrels, but they went through like weedwhackers and ate the foliage down to stems. Grrrr.
Most of the garden is apparently unappealing to deer, given the voracity with which they chomped anything they DID like. Arrgh. That's the spot where I really WANT the hydrangea, too...I may have to get Kevin to mark around it. If that doesn't work, I'll move the poor hydrangea to the fenced backyard, despite the fact that I have done nothing at all to the backyard, have planned nothing, and would be planting a big anchor shrub more or less blind.
God, I hate deer. I hate the massive overpopulation of whitetail deer, anyway. I wish you could rent a wolf pack or a cougar or something...
ETA: I checked the website of our local feedstore for their hours, hoping they might have bloodmeal or a more aggressive deer repellant. Their hours read as follows:
Monday-Friday 8 am -6 pm
Saturday 8 am-3pm
Sunday at Church
Living in a small town in the south is really quite a pleasant experience, particularly since this town is at least half hippies, but every now and again I have this moment of culture shock...
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