I could see that the deer have been visiting our yard for a while now. The flowers on one side of the vehicle gate into the yard have lost all their tops. The winter sown garden bed in the east yard had its lettuces eaten, and then some of the radish plants and seed pods.

In the main garden area, they’ve been walking past the pea trellises and helping themselves to the greens. I’ve still been finding posts along the trellis wire but the outsides of the plants have been pretty decimated.

What really disappointment me, however, was the plum tree. It was growing so well, and growing taller than the protective tomato supports I’d set around it.

The top of it was stripped of its leaves, this morning.

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I am so unhappy with this. Thankfully, they just ate the leaves and not the stem, but still… that’s a huge set back for the tree.

The other new plantings were untouched. They also are nowhere near large enough to outgrow their protective supports.

While at the Dollarama today, I was going to get more of the same tomato supports and just add a new one on top of the old one, to make a sort of tower.

Then I went looking at their display of garden stakes, where I found much taller versions of the same things.

I got two.

It was all I could do not to pick up a whole bunch more garden stakes.

Aside from the height, the new supports are pretty much the same as the old ones. They just needed three sets of cross pieces instead of two. I put the two sets together and set them around the plum tree. Then I used the cross pieces from the smaller set and put them in alternating spaces at two levels, to discourage deer from sticking their heads through.

Last of all, I set a couple of pinwheels at the top, facing in different ways to catch the wind from different directions.

I had another pair of pinwheels and set those up at each end of the pea trellis. I had also picked up a couple of lawn decorations with solar powered lights in them that I added to one end. I’m hoping the lights will discourage the deer, too. Finally, I got a wind chime we’ve had set aside for quite a long time, and hung that off part of the red noodle bean trellis, where it could hang freely. I didn’t bother taking a picture of that. This wind chime is made of bamboo hanging from half a coconut, with a wooden clapper in the middle. I much prefer the sound of wooden wind chimes over all metal ones.

Of course, the pinwheels and wind chimes won’t do a thing, if there’s no breeze to move them. At least the new frame around the plum tree with do that job.

By the time I was done setting all that up, the heat and smoke from the wildfires was starting to get to me, and I had to get back inside. I still need to water the garden, but it’s not supposed to start cooling down for at least another hour. We aren’t exacting rain for a couple of days and even then, who knows if any of it will actually reach us, or go right past.

I am so tired. I’m falling asleep at my keyboard as I write this. I’m glad we made it in to the city to take care of things, but it just sucks the energy right out of me.

It’s just about 7pm as I finish this, and I could go to bed for the night right now!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer