Oh, Deer

 Man, oh man, Summer is just flying by. Kids go back to school in less than 3 weeks! Holy cow.

Thank goodness all mine are out and I don't have to worry about all that anymore...even if it does make me old.

I've still been spending a good bit of time outside, soaking up the heat.
Haven't really gotten anything, any yard or or outside projects, done or even worked on much, though. I just piddle around mostly.

One day I was hanging out out back, snapping some pics, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with them, what was missing.

Eventually it dawned on me - Sky.  Beautiful blue sky with fluffy, white clouds.

 I have to tilt my camera at a certain angle for it to pick up the sky, which darkens and/or cuts out most everything at the bottom of the pic.

Oh well.

So, my (tomato) garden was doing really well. Had a bumper crop of tomatoes coming on. 

Big ol' maters, big as my hand.

I was able to pick about a dozen, give or take, enough to can 2 pints of stewed tomatoes.

And then, Oh, deer!

Probably the almost last thing I expected.
Squirrels, yes. Rabbits even possibly.
But deer?

Hello, deer, we live in neighborhood, with houses on all four sides...eight sides if you want to get technical...most of which have dogs. Big dogs. Scary dogs.

What the heck, deer?

Really, it was a dumb thought - or maybe just wishful thinking - on my/our part to think it/they wouldn't come over here.
We know there are or were deer that live in the woods behind the house two streets across from here.
We know they have come into the hay field across the road, and in fact, a deer was hit by a car right out here in front of the house a couple years back.

But otherwise, we've not ever really seen evidence of the deer coming into our yard, especially not our back yard.  The year we had collard greens and cabbage planted out back, they didn't bother it.

If I remember rightly, I think John even tried to bait them over here with corn or something one time so he could get pictures of them on his trail cam, but it didn't work.

Plus, now, the people that live in that house across the street/field/street have three big ol' mutt dogs they let run loose all over the 'hood, crapping in people's yards, so it figured they would chase or scare off any deer around there.

At any rate, it or they showed up the other night, and ate a ton of my tomatoes. At least a dozen, if not two.

Oh well, they were polite about it, and didn't destroy any of the plants, or leave a mess behind. If I hadn't known how many tomatoes were out there before, I almost wouldn't even have known anything had even happened.

So, I figure it's been going on for a little while. I know there's been other days I'd go out and think, "Wait a minute, wasn't there a tomato there yesterday?", then, "Hmm, I must be misremembering."

Dang deer making me thinking I'm crazy. (More crazy than normal.) Ugh.

J wasn't here to build a sturdy wooden fence around the garden - not to mention, I don't want a fence around the area, since it's my regular back yard when it's not garden season - I really didn't want any kind of fence at all, because it makes it hard/impossible to mow/till the garden - but I had to do something, so I read on the internet for some other solutions.

I ended up going with running a fishing line all the way around, and hanging empty cans from it, to make a noise and scare them away if/when they run into the fishing line.

I used my potted Hydrangea and Chocolate-Mint and some other potted plants I had outside anyway, and then some decorative yard stake things I also had for a long time.

I guess it worked last night. They didn't get into the garden.
We got some thunderstorms, rain yesterday evening, not too bad, though, I don't know if that would deter deer from traveling around or eating.

I saw some new piles of fresh poop, so I think they did come over in the yard, but hopefully the rig-up scared it/them off. 

Sigh.
It's always something.