Why I Hate Deer

Sorry for the fuzziness of this first picture but I was taking it through the screen in my office.

The deer were out the other day, in the middle of the day no less, to graze contentedly at the edge of the front yard. Bold as you please.

Yes, yes I know that they are picturesque and you are thinking all "Bambi" thoughts about those cute deer. Well buddy, let me disabuse you of all those warm and fuzzy notions about deer. They
are marauding rats with hooves!

I try not to complain about the deer and I do what I can to discourage them. We have a nice big dog who happily goes out and pees on all the plants that he can manage to anoint. That helps a tad but he isn't out at night and that is when they are the worst. Have you ever seen Aliens? There is a line, delivered by the little girl Newt as she is talking about the bad aliens. She looks at Ripley blankly and says, "They come out at night, mostly". Well, that is what the deer do. They come out at night...mostly. We live in a heavy deer population area. In fact, we have one female in the neighborhood who consistently produces twins or triplets. Doesn't she know that ONE AT A TIME is fine with the rest of us.

Of course I happen to love several types of plants that are at the top of the "Deer like to eat these" list. Most notable on the list are Hosta and Daylily. With the hostas they just eat the leaves like it was a salad and leave the bare stalks. One year I had a hosta Armageddon when I came back from vacation. Almost every hosta had been partially or totally eaten with just the stalks left behind. I saw this devastation every time that I left the house. As far as the Daylilies go, they don't eat the leaves, they just wait until the blooms are almost ready to open and then they eat the stalk of flower buds. I will look out one day, anticipating the imminent opening of my lovely lilies and the next morning....nada. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

So, I spend part of each summer doing some preventative things. Mostly I spray deer repellent of several different varieties. The spray either smells like vomit (because it has eggs in it) or it smells like a slaughter house and looks like thick blood (because it has blood in it). Aren't you happy to know that. The smell disapates after about 18 hours but the deer can still smell it and they stay away...sort of.

It doesn't kill my hatred of deer though. Everytime I have some venison sausage (like last night) I laugh evilly and say, "Take that Bambi".