Deer in the garden and skunks on the back porch - such are the days of our lives! My poor husband plowed the ground for the garden numerous times in preparation for our fall garden. When it was "just right", he bought some plants and we had some seed to plant as well. He got it all planted and it was doing so well! "Was" being the key word here. He planted squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas. Everything was coming up and doing well! One morning he finds all the bean sprouts pulled up and eaten, the peas too, and the tops eaten out of all the pepper plants. He also finds the tracks of the beautiful deer that we have enjoyed watching morning and evening for many months. It seems that not only have they discovered the garden, they have eaten a good bit of it. My husband, normally a tolerant man, is not in such a tolerant mood anymore. Each morning we go and sit on the porch for coffee, as always, but now we watch as the young deer play their games all over the plowed land. They chase and buck and have a wonderful time in the freshly plowed dirt. This also seems to be their chosen place to bed down in the evening. A neighbor loaned my husband some Night Guard predator lights to put on all four sides of the garden. I couldn't help but notice the deer remained unaffected. It seems they realize that the predator lights are for predators! Since they are not predators, they are perfectly safe in that well protected plot of ground. My husband, normally a tolerant man, is losing patience fast! All that remains of the plants and seed he planted are the squash, zucchini, and a few tomato plants. They must be saving those for later! He has given our sons permission to hunt on our place this fall. I am not in agreement! We must find a way to have deer AND a garden!
If this wasn't enough, I went upstairs a little while back and could smell the faint smell of skunk. I just figured it was somewhere on our property. Upon returning downstairs, I went to the front door to smell and there was no smell in front of our house. I walked into the living room, where my husband was watching TV and he remarked that he could smell a skunk. I asked him if the entry under the house had been closed after the termite inspection. I'm always a little leary of under the house after the skunk incident of 2001! He assured me it had. I pointed out to him that there was no skunk smell in the front yard. He immediately heads for the back door and throws it open to see if he can smell it out there. Well, needless to say, he could smell it alright. It was up close and personal on the back porch. Still not knowing for sure if the skunk was just out back or where, he tells me to look out the patio door that also opens onto the screened porch and see what I can see. I go and find a flash light and start looking through the patio doors to see if it's on the porch. Meanwhile, he has gone and gotten in his van to pull around back and see if he can scare it off the porch if it's on there. I see it there, on the opposite end from the pet door, running back and forth scared and no doubt spraying! I run and flag him down and tell him it's on the porch for sure. He pulls his van to the door and starts flashing his lights and honking. The skunk heads for the other end and gets to the pet door and goes out about the time my husband decided to get out of the van and see where it was. I'm yelling and waving the flash light at him to get back in the van, and of course he looks at me puzzled and says, "what?"! Finally I get it across to him that he must get in the van quickly! I just knew the skunk went out the door and headed his way. Fortunately it left but not without leaving us something to remember it by. The house smelled terrible all night. The next morning was some better!
All of this happened within a matter of days, and people think country living is boring. Really? It reminds me of a song from my younger days - "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you!" Here we are stuck in the middle of a life we absolutely love - deer, skunks and all!
