March 24, 2009 Smarter Than the Average Deer

I'm smarter than the average deer. At least a little bit smarter I hope.

Since we moved, Stacey and I have enjoyed watching the herd of 12 deer come drink from the crick (or "creek" for those who ain't from 'round here) nearly every night. In addition to the herd there is a smaller group of 5 young ones that have come by from time to time and yesterday they got a little too bold. So I chased them away screaming like an idiot. But because I can't be on constant watch and Stacey isn't willing to take shifts guarding the garden with me (rightly so I think) I've been trying to decide what do about them. It's just a matter of time before they discover my garden and they stop being the cute furry things on the hill and become my nemesis... and I already have a nemesis: the stinkbugs. But hopefully I've left them behind- and for the records the stinkbugs won.

I want to strike preemptively on my potential new nemesi (I never tried to pluralize 'nemesis' before and the spell checker didn't help). I brought up the deer issue to my landlord today. Since he already has an electric fence going around half of the orchard, he suggested I just extend the fence around my garden plot. He has some damage to some of his fruit tees from the deer in the past and when I told him that there was a hoof print in the soil I just tilled he offered to help.

We pulled up a 300 foot wire from the field that was not being used, pounded in some stakes, and then hooked up the juice! I was asking a bunch of questions about how to do this properly and he simply responded that "it's not rocket science." Well he was right. As long as the wire has enough tension to be at 'deer level' and the electricity is flowing through it, it'll work. He had a piece of PVC pipe with a wire hook running through it to use as a handle to disconnect the fence at the one end. At some point I'll have to put another one in on the other end so he can get the tractor through. Our rig is a little bit crappy looking I'll admit but but I bet it's effective.

He also suggested that I bait the fence with delicious peanut butter covered aluminum foil to get the point across. So that's what I did. The evil side of me wishes I could take a picture when Bambi first gets a lick!

I hope this works.