Seeing Our Orchard - Day 55 - Daily Haiku

Seeing our orchard
broken branches yet again
I love our deer, but . . .

Cori MacNaughton

I've mentioned in previous posts the issues we have had on our place due to our local deer, and when I say local, what I mean is that we have four does, which is I believe a doe with her three daughters of varying ages, that call our place home. They usually hang out in our woods, and I surprise them on a regular basis on my way to the barnyard, and as our next-door-neighbors feed them, I'm not guessing that they'll be going anywhere else soon.

I thought they might make themselves scarcer, once we got Lolo, but although he occasionally makes a great show of chasing them off, a show it is, as he has actually befriended them. And I have approached as close as twenty feet to them before they finally hightail it into the woods, or across the driveway to our other neighbor's place.

I love the deer, and I love seeing them and having them close at hand, but I am tired of them wreaking havoc on every attempt at edible gardening that I make, and nibbling the growing tips and breaking the branches on our fruit trees. Aaaarrrggghhh.

And please note, all the photos in this post were taken on the same day, 28 April 2017. Wreaking havoc indeed.

It's not enough to just break one branch, no, they go for multiples. And that's not counting the ones broken clean off and littering the ground at the base of the trees.

Like this one, above, that not only has multiple broken branches, but had the top of it's trunk taken clean off. Damned deer.

And another one . . .

And another . . .

And, not content to just break branches, they broke this young tree clean in half. Maybe I should contact the Nashville Zoo and lay in some lion urine. Might be worth a try.

To make matters worse, thanks to a late freeze, we had very little fruit set, with the exception of two young pear trees, one of which was absolutely loaded with fruit. As the fruit ripened, the branch hung lower and lower, until I started getting concerned that the branch might break under the weight of the fruit.

I needn't have worried. On the day I went out to put a brace under the branch, I was stunned to see that it was no longer hanging low . . . and more stunned as I drew closer, and realized that the deer had taken Every. Last. Fruit.

They weren't even fully ripe yet.

All I can say is that our deer had best be grateful that I'm not a hunter, because if I were, they'd all be wall hangings by now.

Which is why I am determined to fully fence the orchard and vegetable gardens this season. They can have the woods. Now all we need is the funding to accomplish it all.

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