Every now and then Mother Nature sticks a pin in my ego just to hear it pop. Apparently this spring she decided I was getting too big for my britches, and her rebuke was swift and humiliating. So the story begins…
Here on Vancouver Island, deer are smug. They don’t even bother to stop grazing on your prized perennials until you get within 20 yards or so. Then they look you square in the eye with an expression that clearly says, “Get lost. You’re interrupting my meal.” They’ll only move on (grudgingly) if you run at them, waving your arms and yelling. Dumb deer.
(I’m pretty sure Mother Nature snickered with evil anticipation when I uttered those words.)
We have an 8’ high pagewire fence to keep the deer out of our garden. It works fine, unless a tree falls on it. So when I glanced out the window and spotted a deer chowing down on my tulips, I didn’t need three guesses to figure out what had happened.
That’s when I made my first mistake: I charged outdoors yelling and waving my arms. And instead of fleeing via the open gate, the deer strolled away and vanished into the forest behind our house. Hubby and I checked the fence line, and discovered where a giant tree had fallen and smashed the fence flat.
Then we made our second mistake: We repaired the fence, assuming that the deer had departed via the same route it had arrived. (They usually do.)
But no; this time we discovered we’d trapped the deer inside.
That kicked off a gong show of ever-escalating attempts to evict the deer: Purchasing a motion-activated trail camera; floundering through dense woods looking for deer shit and tracks; crashing around in said woods with air horns and whistles; getting the neighbours to bring over their dogs; installing a high-wattage yard light; and constructing an elaborate corn-baited trap against the gate, so we could open the gate and release the trapped deer outside the perimeter.
Each time I came up with a new ‘foolproof’ plan, I patted myself on the back for being smarter than a cervid.
But each time, the deer outsmarted me.
At last, Mother Nature must have decided I was suitably chastened. One morning I spotted hoofprints and disturbed ground near a low point in the fence (right beside our brilliant trap). Apparently the deer had simply gotten bored and left. In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that for a few days the deer was jumping the fence both ways: Coming in to snack on the corn bait and then departing without triggering the trap. Embarrassing.
But despite the revelation that I’m dumber than a deer, I’m still calling the episode a win: The deer is gone and hasn’t returned.
Kinda like my pride, actually…
Book 18 update: I’m on Chapter 22, and Aydan’s former enemy is suspiciously friendly. Aydan’s not buying it, but she has to play along… for now.
Author Diane Henders 
Working my way backwards through the posts I missed and I’m glad I got to read this one. lol
It’s incredibly frustrating to be one (or two) humans against all that wildlife but you are refreshingly cheerful about it. Just know that waaay over on the east coast I struggle with them too, despite having far fewer plants to guard. What my neighbours and I are doing is replanting everything with deer resistant plants. But that only works with non-food items, and it’s not foolproof. If deer are hungry they will eat just about anything. I have found that growing vast quantities of mint seems to put them off, and mint is a useful herb. (It’s “vast quantities” only because I haven’t had the time or energy to pull most of it out, which is what I used to do!)
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Ah, mint: My nemesis. Everybody swears mint is foolproof to grow and positively invasive; but I’ve never successfully grown it. I guess it just doesn’t like me.
My favourite deer-resistant plant is Geranium macrorrhizum(Cranesbill geranium). Its fuzzy aromatic leaves seem to repel both deer and rabbits, and the bees love its hot-pink flowers. It spreads via rhizomes, but it’s easy to pull up if necessary; and starting a new clump is as easy as yanking up a chunk of it and stuffing it in the ground somewhere else. Plus it’s one of the first plants to green up in the spring, it has pretty yellow/pink fall colour, and it’s drought-resistant. Win! (I could probably mail you a chunk of it if you want – I’ve literally thrown it, bare-root, on the compost pile and then changed my mind a week later and planted it. And it grew just fine.) 🙂
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Pingback: STILL Not Smarter Than A Cervid | Author Diane Henders
🦌🦌 I enjoyed your deer tale. Neil S.
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it! I enjoyed seeing the (metaphorical) deer tail when it left. 🙂
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damn deer. We have issues with them as well from time to time, and I did find that putting a few well placed chopsticks about the plants will help. Apparently when they go to much it pokes them in the nose, and off they go. Of course that only works with small plants and only when you have a few.
on a different note, ever run across an author named Chevy Stevens? I really enjoy her books (thrillers that get in your head!) and just read her bio, finally. Apparently she is also on your island. 😊
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Oh, how cool! I hadn’t heard of her – small world. Her books look truly creepy (in the best way). 🙂
I like the chopstick trick, too; although I might need a LOT of chopsticks. To be perfectly honest, I get a great deal of evil satisfaction from using my recent purchase: A Gel Blaster. I bought it mainly to scare off the rabbits without hurting them; but yesterday another deer popped in for a visit. This time we were ready with a plan, and Hubby and I managed to “encourage” it out the gate in only a few minutes. The CLACK-CLACK-CLACK of the Gel Blaster in it full-automatic mode, plus a few gel bubbles pelting the deer’s butt made it flee… but only across the road. There, it slowed and wandered nonchalantly into the forest as if nothing had happened. Dumb deer!
(It’s too bad we’re not deer-hunters – come fall, we could get a deer without even leaving our chairs on the front porch.)
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Thanks for sharing this Diane. I know it had to of been very frustrating, but it does make for an interesting story!!!
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It was frustrating at the time, but funny in retrospect! 😃
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Ahhh yes deer wars I remember them well when we resided in Invermere BC. We had dug and planted over the years a ushaped flower garden which we shared..the deer ate them and I grabbed what I could to put in vases. Our customers oohed and aahed about deer in the beautiful, colourful garden and our dog enjoying chasing one occasionally. The deer wandered all over the town and one day one came into the garden dragging it’s left back leg. After much discussion we decided to call the Mounties who were stationed nearby. The deer had laid down in the shade and I vanished indoors only to hear a gunshot five minutes later….then wildlife officials arrived to take the poor thing away. I felt so sad that we couldn’t help this pretty creature but very glad it wasn’t an elk.
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Aw, that is sad; but at least the poor deer didn’t suffer. And that’s a big ‘YEP!’ on the “At least it’s not an elk” statement! We have Roosevelt elk (the biggest species of elk) here on the Island. They pass through a forest corridor about a kilometre from our place in the spring and fall, and at first I mistook the sound of their bugling for cattle mooing (but there are no farms in the vicinity, so I figured it out). We don’t see the elk often, but I’ll never forget the time one crashed through our fence.
I was sitting outside with my morning tea when I spotted this large brown critter at the far corner of the property. I thought, “Wow, that’s a big deer – glad it’s outside the fence.” Moments later I realized my mistake when the elk trotted closer… inside the fence. S/he spotted me when I stood up for a better look, and the elk took off like a rocket and mowed down the fence on the other side of the property as s/he left. That 8′ pagewire barely slowed it down!
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Like the rabbit in Phenomenon!
Phenomenon (1996) – IMDbhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117333/
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Ha! Exactly. Both we and the deer would have been much happier if we could have avoided the whole fiasco!
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So, let me see if I have this right. The deer (1 or 1+?) exploited an act of nature to access your private preserve, munched on your “prized” perennials to their satisfaction, led you and hubby on a series of exploits worthy of the Keystone Cops, trained you to feed them deer corn and then, when the pickings became more favorable on the other side of the fence, it/they ambled to the other side without even a tail flick of gratitude in your direction. And you call it a win? Good Lord, Diane.
That is like having a squatter move onto your property, watch you go through all types of contortions to evict them, train you to feed them and only leave when the McMansion across the road becomes “available” for them to move over to. lol.
Actually, despite my paltry attempt at jocularity, I fully understand your unfortunate situation. White Tail deer are more than plentiful in my area and they can be death on spring crops. Alas, ofttimes, the only way to get rid of the deer is to get rid of the deer.
i have found it funny, in a very unfunny way, the number of new residents to the area who decry our native autumn deer hunting rituals as barbaric, only to scream to high heaven the next spring when deer invade the sanctity of their $500,000+ estates and graze on their $25,000 worth of landscaping. Karma, as the saying sorta goes, can be rich.
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Hahaha!!! You missed one important point in your ‘squatter’ analogy: The part where they shit on our front porch and then ring the doorbell to demand toilet paper.
When you put it like that, my whole ‘deer’ exploit sounds even dumber. But then again, ‘dumbest’ would have been shooting the deer out of season, hiding the body… and then blogging about it for the world (and law enforcement) to see. So at least I have a few functioning brain cells remaining. 😀
These are black-tailed deer, which I had never encountered before we moved to Vancouver Island. In Alberta we had white-tails and mule deer, both of which were considerably more skittish than the black-tails. But there were a LOT more hunters in Alberta, so that probably has a quite a bit to do with it. Here, too, people tend to side with the critters (including bears, which boggles my mind) until they have a close encounter of the unpleasant kind.
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Oh, no! You are so right about my missed point. That is hilarious, Diane.
I’ve seen pictures of black tailed deer, but will probably never actually see one.
yeah, bears are a problem but I actually side with them; they never asked anyone to destroy their homes. Such is referred to as progress, but I wonder. Perhaps I’m a Luddite, but it seems to me that things were better back when the bears had a home and a much younger me knew everyone who lived within five miles of home.
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Isn’t that the truth? We’re very lucky where we’ve landed – we’ve gotten to know most of our neighbours and they’re all really nice people. Sometimes you win! (Unless you’re a bear, I guess.)
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Thanks for the chuckle. Your undeterred deer reminds me of a visiting skunk we had last spring. We live on a farm so wildlife is common, though usually after dark. We have a cat (Sammy) who, weather permitting, spends most of his day outside. He reluctantly comes in before dark. Sammy is a bit of bully and will take on any animal on our property. One day last May after letting Sammy out my husband noticed a skunk busily digging grubs out of our yard. We quickly got Sammy back in the house and waited for the skunk to leave. She did not. So my husband climbed into one of our tractors and proceed to slowly chase the skunk off our property. This game of chase became a daily occurrence though usually with me chasing the skunk with my pick-up while honking my horn. It was an interesting chase since skunks can only move so fast and I did not want to get close enough to get sprayed. Thankfully our neighbours are not close so they would not hear me honking the horn but anyone driving by must have wondered what the hell I was doing. After several days the skunk got wise to this game and hid in some long grass across the road and then doubled back when my truck was back in the garage. This started the phase of chase, retreat, chase again. Thankfully after a couple of weeks the skunk did not come back. As it is spring again I have started doing my daily check out of each window to ensure the skunk has not reappeared. So far there have been no sightings but I don’t count on that lasting.
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Skunks, oh yikes! I love them because they’re so cute; but I have NO desire to get up close and personal with one. They used to show up regularly on the farm where I grew up, but I haven’t seen one here (yet). Which suits me fine.
I laughed at your slow-speed “chase”! Very smart of you – I don’t think skunks respond well to “hurry up”. Fingers crossed that your unwanted guest doesn’t show up again this year! 😉
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I really enjoy these real-life episodes, Diane. Thank you for providing us with entertaining images and colorful scenarios. I had to look up what Cervid meant. Of course. Not only do you make me smile, you enrich my vocabulary as well. Happy gardening – and writing!
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Thanks, Liesbet! I’m glad you got some chuckles; and I feel like I’ve really accomplished something if you had to look up a word. That doesn’t happen very often, I’m sure! 😀 (I wouldn’t have known what cervid meant, either; but I ran across it when I was doing research on our deer problem.)
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I am frequently embarrassed at how easily (and often) I am outsmarted. And have no pride left. I am glad that your deer finally decided to leave, and hope that it is now bored with your patch and doesn’t return.
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Thanks, EC – that’s my hope, too. S/he was probably lonely – they usually travel in groups of 2 or 3, and would likely prefer to be in their group. Fortunately the fence is up more than it’s down; and deer are creatures of habit. S/he’ll likely stay out from now on. (Fingers crossed… says the woman who used to think she was smarter than a deer…) 😉
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And here I thought our neighborhood rabbits were bad! Or that groundhog who ate my entire garden literally down to the nubs almost 20 years ago.
I won’t get into the sparrow’s nest on the downspout next door with its incessant chirping (and using our cars as targets for their butt bombs). The only positive side is that these are not Canada Geese, leaving organic tootsie rolls everywhere.
I’m cool with nature. As long as it doesn’t bother me! 😁
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“Butt bombs” and “organic Tootsie Rolls” – LOL!
You’re so right about the bother. 😁 This is the first time in 7 years that we’ve had a ‘problem’ deer/bear that didn’t let itself out the same area of downed fence where it entered. But we’re still trying to deter the flock of violet-green swallows that are snapping up most of the bees in the area; and I have a vendetta against the encroaching rabbits.
I’ve just deployed my most recent (and enjoyable) weapon: A Gel Blaster toy. It shoots hydrated starch pellets that might sting a bit if I actually hit the rabbit; but I can’t. Not due to any issues with my marksmanship (markswomanship?); but because it spits out the gellets in a completely random pattern. I could have spent a lot of money for a gellet weapon with accuracy, but I didn’t care that much. The Gel Blaster makes a loud noise and plinks gellets in the general vicinity of the rabbits, and I get the satisfaction of watching them flee!
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