New York Renovator

Hurray! I ventured out to the apple trees and discovered this!

That’s the first time EVER my Jonathan Apple Tree has blossom, ever. I’ve only had it in the ground for about 8 years! It’s suffered badly from the deer. I’ve tried everything to repel those nasty creatures but they are mighty hardy critters, I tell you what. They shredded my poor little weeping willow tree over the winter. They ripped off almost all the bark on the stripling– OOO I was blazing upset. I wrapped it in tree wrap and I see leaves on it this spring but I’m too scared to take off the wrap and see the horrible condition of the trunk. We’ll see if the willow survives. I really need willows, to slurp up all the water around here. I’ve tried growing several, but they are either destroyed by my neighbors or the deer. Gardening here is more of a battle than a pleasant pastime. It’s like a Merry Go Cycle of catastrophes– flooding, deer, or neighbor kids with hacksaws!

Anyway, my little apple tree is only about 12 feet tall now, and scrawny as anything. But it looks like, Lord willing, I just might get some fruit this year. We’ve already had 2 hard frosts that threatened the blossoms, but they’ve held their own. Here in Upstate New York, we really can’t be guaranteed against frost at any time of the year. We are so close to Canada that a slightly gusty wind blowing south can ruin our plants. So the blossoms here are extra special.

Now that’s it’s spring and I’m surveying the massive damage to my vegetation and gardens, it’s time for my annual “I Hate Deer” post! Yay!

To start off this year’s festivities, I present to you a marvelous short film, Bambi Meets Godzilla.

I first saw this video more than 30 years ago! I was flabbergasted to see it on YouTube. We kids were around the television set when this little film came on sometime in the late 70s? I think it was done by a university student, as a school project? Can’t remember. It was on TV one fine Saturday afternoon. My brothers and I and my very little sister were watching it. Oh the sweet, lilting music! The adorable and soft sylvan setting! The innocent little fawn munching on my future hostas forest foliage!

All of sudden, HERE COMES GODZILLA! Impending doom.

The boys and I (quite the tomboy) rolled on the floor, laughing. My young sister, however, was aghast and shouted out in distress. For some reason, we all thought her angst was hilarious, too, and laughed even harder. It was tough being a girl in our family.

I never forgot that video. I even told my kids about it. Imagine my surprise to find it on YouTube!! I gathered them around the computer like a mother hen with her chicks, pressed the “Full Screen” key and turned up the volume. With swelling anticipation, I awaited their hilarious laughter.

The video ended.

Silence.

“Oh Mom’s so sadistic,” a daughter rolled her eyes. The other kids were quiet.

WHAT?!?! I think it’s cool.

Deer eat my gardens, they eat my trees, they stomp my yard sign, they poop in my lawn, they wreck all my hard work!!! Cheers to Godzilla. Muahahahhaaha.

So who are you rooting for?

Well, well. This will take care of the weeds in the garden.

I came right up to the thing, about 3 feet away. It’s a young buck, can you see his stubby antlers? He kept rubbing them on his leg. When I tried to touch him, he jumped out of the garden and wandered around the backyard for a while.

The deer here are incredibly tame. He sat in the grass, swishing flies from his tail and munched on my lawn.

Later, I was sitting in the screened gazebo with Livvy when the deer came around again. My other cat, Fuzzy, was with us, too. Fuzzy was oblivious to the deer, because he was facing Livvy with his back to the deer. The deer spotted Fuzzy and for some crazy reason, started to approach him quietly. It looked like the deer wanted to play with Fuzzy! Slowly, slowly, the deer gingerly crept closer to Fuzzy. Livvy and I watched, spellbound, from only about 3 or 4 feet from them.

Suddenly, Fuzzy turned around and saw the deer. BOING!!! His tail exploded into a bushy rod and he sprinted for the basement doors (where he sleeps). The deer snorted several times and chased after Fuzzy!!! It was pretty wild! I’d never heard a deer snort, and I don’t think Fuzzy had, either. Fuzzy peeped his little head up from the basement steps as if to ask, “Is the coast clear?” The deer stared after him, wondering why the pretty kitty didn’t want to come out and play. It was a “Bambi and Thumper” moment. LOL.

Well, the deer eventually gave up and wandered back into the garden to eat more weeds.

My arborvitae are dead, me thinks. The deer had them for dinner over the winter, all 8 of them. $200 down the drain.

Speaking of deer, they are absolutely fearless. I saw them out in my backyard, munching grass. I was a little fearful that they’d devour my new little willow tree back there, so I went to see if they’d done any damage.

SOMEBODY in the area has been feeding them, domesticating them. Because as I drew nearer and nearer, they were not afraid. At one point, they started to bolt, but when I talked soothingly, they were willing to come right up to me, as if they expected food or the best creatine powder. Oh, great.

I live in a town, on a busy street. Deer are a growing problem, not only to us gardeners and the pets (deer spread Lyme disease through the scads of deer ticks they drop in our lawns), but cars hit them when the deer jump out into the roads. These deer were so docile that I could tell they were being domesticated, somehow. Not good. They should be driven out into their natural habitat, the forests in the back.

Now that the snow is melting, I can walk to the backyard to access the winter damage done by the deer and snowmobilers. :-p

My poor apple trees. My poor grape vine!! I could skin those varmints alive, I could.

My grapevine didn’t get it as bad as the apple trees. The busted post is from the Husband varmint. He accidentally backed into the garden fencing when working on the brakes, lol.

But my apples trees! ! Ever year I go out to access the damage, and every year it’s the same– the trees are half eaten by those STUPID DEER!!!!!!!!! I hate them, I do.

By the way, that goofy string on the limb is my hokey version of deer repellent. Well, it WAS deer repellent. Well, actually, I guess it wasn’t. It didn’t repel anything!!!! GAH!!! It was a bar of soap hanging from the string. The soap (so I heard) repels deer. MY deer are SO nasty that they even eat soap!!!

*cries*

I have to go high tech, I think. I can’t sit back and watch my beautiful trees chewed up and devoured by critters that deserve only to be made into stew. I hear coyotes repel deer! mauhahahhahaha!!!! But… coyotes repel ME, too. So…. next best thing is to get….

COYOTE WHIZ!!! Yes! Well, technically it’s called “Coyote Urea.” *adjusts glasses* I really don’t care WHAT the durn stuff is, as long as it makes those deer high-tail it outta my yard. Buy.com has some of this stuff on sale for under $15. It’s called Shake Away Coyote Urea, and one application is supposed to last up to 90 days. That’s better than anything else I’ve have ever seen.

So, I hope my problems will be solved… now I need to figure out how to repel the blasted snowmobilers that tear up my yard…

They’re back.

Mama Deer brings her newborn babies to our gardens every year. *sigh* Deer are very cute, but they are eating machines on legs. They decimated my Rose of Sharon, Apple trees, Willow trees, well just about everything (!) a year ago. Their appetite is insatiable. An hour of no eating is like a day of austin weight loss for these non-stop-eating critters!

The Mama and other baby are skittish (but they still came near somewhat). One of the fawns is bold. He waltzed right over and licked our hands, munched from my tree, and found my son’s leftover luncheon crumbs on his pants. I managed to catch a brief video.

They ARE cute, but don’t be fooled for a second: they’ll eat you out of house and home in a DAY.

Here in Upstate New York, we remain rather skeptical of spring until at least Tax Day. I mean, snow in April is not a complete anomaly around here. And we really can’t set out any plants, safe from the threat of frost, until after Mother’s Day. Even so, last year in the first week of June we has frost. And then, there’s MY yard. There’s a microclimate here in my yard, at the base of two sloping hills perpendicular to each other. All plants in my yard bloom a good 2-3 weeks AFTER my neighbors’ plants do. I have no idea why this is so– it’s no Stratosphere hotel here to be sure…. maybe because it is so wet here? Or cooler than the other yards? But all my plants, year after year, bloom later than everyone else’s. It figures that I would have such a weird yard. Sigh.

Anyway… look! My peonies are starting to pop up! I love these plants, even though the flowers plop over each other when in bloom. They smell heavenly.

My Grape Hyacinths are back. I did not plant these– they were one of the very few pretty plants growing here when we moved in (the previous owners were real brown thumbs– besides a front bed full of boring, overgrown hostas, the only other plants here were 5 yews and a huge Stinging Nettle Bush).

My lovely lilac tree is budding. AT LAST. The shrub is now about 7 feet tall. I am eagerly waiting for it to tower over this area of the yard, to shield the ugly parking lot next door.

And look! A REAL BLOSSOM! One daffodil, yippeee!

I won’t talk about the other plants that were eaten over the winter, by the STUPID DEER. I hate deer. They chewed through my Privet bushes, my Weeping Willow, my Spirea, my Yuccas, my grapevine, my Iris… GRRRRRR! But I can’t think about them today. They will ruin a perfectly happy, sunny day. But I can still plot my revenge…. heh heh. More to come.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I hate deer! I hate them with a burning white hot fiery inferno of liquid lava-boiling anger!

YEAH, the nasty critters ate their winter through my trees and flower gardens again this year!!

They ate my baby Weeping Willow tree down to a stub. I nurtured that thing for TWO years, and it’s gone. They’ve eaten my Rose of Sharon, my hostas, my baby Redbuds… they also ate through some of my brand-new spirea shrubs, and I also just found out that they’ve been imbibing on my beloved grapevine!! Look at this!!!!!

I don’t know what to do, I really don’t. I’ve tried leaving hair from the kids’ haircuts; bars of soap, cat litter, dried blood…. nothing has worked and THEY EAT EVERYTHING!

*sobs*

Besides maintaining a standing army with rifles, I don’t know what to do. Maybe I could get some motion detector lights that will shine bright lights when they sense motion? No, I’d need electric wiring for that. I think I may have to go high-tech with some deer fencing or deer repellant. Has anyone has any success with this?

Buy.com is having a great sale on the stuff right now. Buy.com is my new favorite store right now. I can’t believe all the stuff they have. It’s great, because they allow other, smaller stores to sell stuff, too, which increases the inventory and really makes it convenient to shop. I got hooked on them after seeing their Weekly Sale page online. The home and outdoor selection is great! I spotted this owl (no pun intended), too. I’ve been wanting to get one, to scare off the mice and the crows. My neighbors all have these owls on their fence posts; and so the critters have taken up residence at MY place because MY gardens seem to be the safe place for the drive-thru!

Check out Buy.com for loads of stuff– everyday living stuff, housewares, patio and outdoor stuff, summer apparel, loads and loads more! And don’t forget to bookmark the Weekly Sale page. If ONLY they came with deer-removal services, they’d be perfect! The repellant will have to do…