deer

So today I look out the floor-to-ceiling window on the north side of the living room and there is a doe looking at me. Apparently, while I was at market on Wednesday, there were deer looking in the same window at my mother and daughter. There's nothing quite like a two year-old telling you about deer looking in the window. It immediately turned into "reindeer!"

Anyway, today there were five deer instead of the three that were hanging around on Wednesday. They are not at all shy, and are difficult to frighten away. They were chewing on the juniper shrubs in front of the house (the first photo was taken from out the front door, the second through the kitchen window), since there are no longer birdfeeders for them to pillage. I love to watch the three different kinds of woodpeckers, the cardinals, Carolina wrens, chickadees, and other little no-name, Pennsylvania Winter birds. My daughter and I would sit in front of the window and watch the birds and squirrels, sometimes even rabbits, for many minutes at a time (that's nearly eternity for a toddler). It was like Bird TV, it was great. I am actually really, really pissed off that the only thing I can do, without buying 12-foot shepherd's poles and hanging feeders by way of a ladder in two feet of snow, is to take the feeders down for the year. I understand that the deer are hungry. Fine. I understand that human development has taken deer habitat, and therefore food supply, away. Fine. I still don't want them in my yard.
I didn't need a fence in my garden last year. I had a fence that was 2 feet high around it, which was silly because it didn't really deter anything other than children (ok, maybe not that silly, then). Now this year, I have planned numerous unfenced beds with some berry-yielding plants in them. . . deer bait. Damn.
Last year I spread dehydrated coyote urine on the places that deer entered and left the yard, and it kept them away. I can only hope that this year, once the snow melts and food is available again, some wild critter pee will do the trick.