Seasonal Wildlife!

It's about that time of year again... Yep, deer hunting season! We have not really fed the deer on our farm in the past 2 years... And this year is no exception w/ our having the garden and all. I mean we have been AVOIDING them for crying out loud! We have been trying to keep them away for moths now. But, (yes, there is always a but!) the deer have been visiting our lower clover plot all summer long... And they have been scratching and licking a certain place where we have put a salt block in the past for them. They have licked and scratched so much there this summer that it is a huge 5 ft diameter by 1 ft deep crater in the ground! So our solution is that we put out a salt block a week or so ago in the middle of the crater... Just to see what the deer would do. And look what came out for a lick or 10....

This might just inspire me to hunt a little more this year!!

Destruction!

What happens when you don't get your plot saver fence up early enough? Large wildlife find their way into your garden or pumpkin patch and wreak havoc on the young green sunflower stalks... And unfortunately, we had to learn the hard way. Early last week every plant was intact... by Saturday morning the young shoots of sunflowers were missing their leaves... Every last one of them! UGH On a side note: They also sampled several tops out of the bi-colored corn stalks and took a couple of bites of one of the pumpkin plant leaves... Must not have liked them!

Close up of what's left of a couple of sunflower stalks.

And here is the entire row of sunflowers... Tops are GONE.

Lots of hoofprints all over the garden...

And so by golly we had the plot saver up by mid-afternoon - TWO lines of it!

Hopefully, this will deter the hungry wildlife. We would hate to see this lush pumpkin patch go to waste!