More Deer, and Other Critters

I moved my trail camera to a slightly different location on Sunday.  This new place appears to have a much better view of the night time wildlife activity.  Looks like the tidier areas of the Rose Field are quite the hang out spot!

Here are the images from early Monday morning and Monday night ...

... and here are Tuesday's critters:

The most awesome photo from this set of images is this one, from mid-morning on Tuesday.

Having a sneaky trail camera on duty gives me a whole different idea of who's the boss around here.  Not me, at least at night.  This place belongs to the critters ... and I'm totally okay with that.

Deer

My trail camera captured this image a few nights ago.  

That a pretty big deer there in the Rose Field.  I see evidence of light deer damage on my roses from time to time, but it is rarely anything really terrible.  To be safe, though, I plan to protect my newly planted baby roses with little wire cages till spring.

"Hart" is an old English word for deer.  It's no surprise, therefore, to see deer in a place named Hartwood ... though I see WAY more deer in neighboring subdivisions than I do here in our country setting.

Peekaboo, I See You

As I was sitting here in my usual spot yesterday morning, I look out the window just in time to see the tail end of a deer as it slipped into our line of cedar trees back by the Rose Field.  I quickly put on shoes, snapped the long lens onto my camera, and I went out to 'shoot' it.

The deer was almost immediately aware of my presence, and it watched intently as I stood behind some roses, focused my camera and shot photos of him/her through the fence.

 

 

Deer around here are very wary.  As I stepped from my hiding place to get a clearer look, the deer turned and sprang away ... its white tail raised in alarm.  He/she stopped at the fence by the back of our barn, and turned to look at me.

 

 

 

This deer was a big one!  I see no sign of antlers, so I think it's a doe.  Bucks should be starting to grow this year's set of antlers by now.  (Antlers are deciduous.  They are shed naturally in winter after breeding season and they regrow in the spring.)

 

 

 

I left the deer alone at this point, and I didn't follow it any farther.  Last I saw it, it walked toward the woods at the back of the property and was gone.

 

 

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As I opened Blogger this morning, I saw that yesterday's post was #800!  Hard to believe that I've had 800 different things to say over the past four-and-a-half years ... 801 things now.

 

Thank you to those of you who have stuck with me for so many years, and welcome to everyone who is just arriving.  Sit and stay for a while.  I promise you won't get bored.

 

This Week Was a Blur

Most of you have probably already figured out that I rarely sit still.  I generally have at least two projects going at once, so I'm used to skipping from thing to thing to thing.  This week, though, I had WAY too many things lined up to do. 

My rose propagation exhibit at yesterday's Culpeper flower show was a big hit.  There weren't enough people there at any given time for me to do any dedicated demonstrations, but I did answer a LOT of questions. 

 

 

What's that I see in the center of the table with the rest of the items in my display?  That would be the award given to the best educational exhibit, scoring 95 points or higher.  I was in total shock when I saw it.  I don't do these things for awards or recognition ... I get my reward when people go home and have success when they try what I teach them.  (It's still really cool to win, though.)

 

 

 

I have two new game camera photos to show you.  In its new spot overlooking part of the Rose Field, I captured two decent photos.  Night #1 had one photo of a deer ... look carefully on the right.

 

 

 

Night #2, the camera captured another image of a fox.

 

 

 

I mentioned that I was out of town from Saturday until Tuesday of last week, helping my brother.  He and his wife are renovating her mother's former house near Abingdon, Virginia. My brother is a VERY talented kitchen installer by trade, and he gets to put his considerable talents to work on his own project this time ... updating the place to make it into a comfortable second home.   My part of the renovation will be to paint the cabinets. I'm working on a custom color that I know you're going to love.

 

 

 

What am I doing today?  The weather is beautiful and it's a great day to work on the new rose bed that I'm putting in along the fence behind our garage.

 

 

 

I hope all of you have a great Sunday!!

 

What Happens While the People Are Sleeping

I have been told by more than one person that it's important to be patient when trying to capture photos of wildlife with a game camera.  Just like I promised to do in my last post, I left my camera in place and didn't mess with it at all ... for four whole days!  (This wasn't too difficult to do, since I was out of town during that time ... from Saturday morning until Tuesday night.) 

This morning, I anxiously went to the barn to retrieve the memory card from the camera ... hoping that there had been some action for it to photograph.  I was not disappointed.

Here is a big fat groundhog.  (My camera takes color photos during the day, and infrared B&W photos at night.)

 

 

I got lots of photos of deer over the course of my absence.  Night #1 yielded these ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night #2 was very fruitful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The camera only captured one photo on Night #3.  (Peek-a-boo!)

 

 

 

No deer on Night #4 ... but I got a pretty decent photo of a fox!

 

 

 

As I was walking to and from the camera, I noticed that some of the roses in one particular section of the Rose Field have been nibbled on by what I assume was deer.  I have the camera trained on that spot and the path that leads to it, so I hope to have evidence of the nibblers by the end of the week.  (Believe me, it's going to be really hard for me to leave the camera alone till then.)

 

Ghostly Deer

Wouldn't you know it.  The ONE photo that I have of wildlife that walked past my game camera was taken when it was foggy.

If you look carefully, and use your imagination, you can BARELY make out the outline of three deer.

I'm still waiting patiently to capture an image of the bear.  No progress to report on that front.

Experimenting With Deer Fencing

Up until this year, I have had no problem letting the deer browse a bit in the rose garden as they roam through the property in the wee hours of the morning or evening.  I have plenty of roses, and a little nip here or there didn't hurt them a bit.  This year, however, the deer seem to be spending more time munching and less time traveling.  Many of my smaller roses have had a tough time keeping any of their new growth.

A photo from earlier this year.  Imagine what this rose COULD have been, if the deer hadn't gnawed off all the buds like they did.

The Austin Garden is in a particularly difficult spot ... in a direct line, midway between the grape vines at the winery (deer love grapes as much as people do) and my other neighbor's pond.  The deer have been nipping the taller new growth all season long.  I have to do something.

Folks have suggested that I use a deer repellant chemical.  I bought Liquid Fence last year (or was it the year before?) because this one seems to be rated the best.  The stuff REEKS, which is why it repels the deer ... and it also is quite effective at repelling people.  I thought it was stupid to try to protect my sweet-smelling roses by making them stink.   (Plus, the stuff is expensive, the deer can become accustomed to it, and it gummed up my sprayer.)

There are other chemical/scent/barrier ideas that I have heard about.  I decided against using bars of deodorant soap, or human hair, or rotten eggs, or tiger dung (where do they come up with this stuff).  I could try to fence them out, but a traditional deer fence is at least 8 feet high, and must enclose the area to be protected.  This would be expensive and completely impractical on our open property.

A visitor and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago  (Hi, Donna!)  She had a suggestion that I AM going to try, which was given to her by the owner of the fabulous garden at Mount Sharon, who swears by its effectiveness.  This is enough of an endorsement for me.

I bought an armload of 4-foot fiberglass plant stakes at Big Lots.  They are a lovely,color-of-grass, unobtrusive green, and they only cost 70 cents each.  (Tractor Supply has similar stakes in pale grey for $1.09.)  I hammered the stakes into the ground at four-foot intervals around the perimeter of the Austin Garden.

Remember, you're supposed to be concentrating on the fence ... not the weeds.

Donna told me to loosely attach two strands of fishing line between the stakes -- one at the top of the stake and one near the middle.  She said that this is enough of a barrier to aggravate the deer, and they'll move on.  I used small zip ties to keep the fishing line in place.

Working by myself, it only took a little over an hour for me to do the whole garden.  The green stakes blend nicely with the grass, and the fishing line is all but invisible.

Since this fence can't have a true gate, I left an access point by overlapping two layers of the fence across the path and I can zig-zag into the garden through this opening ... if that makes sense.

My next challenge, if this experiment in the Austin Garden is successful, is trying to figure out how to use fencing like this to help protect the Rose Field.  This will be a LOT more complicated.

(edited to add:  Donna just emailed me and told me that I have to tighten up my fishing line.  I guess I know what I'll be outside doing later this morning.)

Far-Flung Randomness

I am overwhelmed by all of your wonderful, loving comments and emails about our dear Amy.  It is comforting to know that we are not alone with this ... that so many of you have recently gone through this with your beloved pets ... and that you cared enough to send such wonderful thoughts my way.  I am humbled.

This past weekend was a blur.  It began on Saturday morning with a beautiful sunrise.  I was sitting here on the couch in the family room, answering emails and thinking about how to write about Amy, when I noticed a beautiful pink light coming through the windows.  I grabbed my camera, put on a coat and boots, and I stood outside leaning against one of our oak trees, snapping photos while the sun rose.

I checked on the roses in the greenhouse, and I found that the bud on the Mutabilis baby was open!  (I showed it last week in THIS post.)  Looking at this makes me really anxious for rose season ... but I have so much to do before then.

Later in the morning, we went to see our grandson's soccer game.  I loved watching our daughters play soccer when they were kids, and I get to experience this feeling again with Drew.  It was cold, and we froze, but it was so much fun!

In the afternoon, The Husband and I went along with our daughter for the first fitting of her wedding dress.  You should have seen her face light up when she stepped out of the dressing room and looked at herself in those huge mirrors.  I took pictures, but I can't show them to you ... sorry.  Trust me, there will be lots to share after the wedding in June.

We had a wonderful spur-of-the-moment dinner with friends on Saturday night.  She called while we were at the soccer field, and invited us to come over after the dress fitting.  It was a delightful way to end a very hectic day.

Sunday was a whole lot warmer than Saturday had been.  Before anyone else was awake, I put on my coat and boots, put my second cup of coffee into a travel cup, and I slipped out the back door to go for a walk in the garden.

I love this time of the morning because the angle of the sun illuminates the barn in the distance beyond the garden.  There's still a lot of work to be done in the garden to make it decent.  I'm thinking of having a volunteer work day soon ... I wonder if anyone would come?

As I walked to the barn itself, I found that deer have been using the area around my new David Austin garden as a pathway to get to the pond next door.  Nothing is eaten ... yet ... but it's probably only a matter of time.  This garden should probably get its picket fence sooner, rather than later.

There is a beautiful view from beside the barn, the highest spot on our property, across to the vineyard at the winery next door.  In summer, this view is the most beautiful color of green!

I couldn't stand around and admire the surroundings for too long, because I had to get cleaned up and on the road to do a presentation for the Virginia Peninsula Rose Society, which required a 2 1/2 hour drive to get there.  It was really relaxing ... the traffic was light, the sun was shining, and I tuned my Ipod to my favorite Godsmack CD and turned the volume UP ... it seemed like the perfect day for some hard rock.  The folks at the rose society seemed to enjoy learning about the roses I grow.

Today will be a warm one ... perfect for pulling weeds and pruning roses.  There are still a LOT of roses left to prune.  While I was gone yesterday, The Husband finished installing the timber edging around the rambler fence.  It looks really good!  (I'll show it to you later.)

Now, I have to call someone and have them bring me a dumptruck-load of mulch.