Tag Archives: deer

Wishful thinking?

Gardening, , ,

The deer already ate my crocuses, and they were sooooo beautiful, for a day.

And the tulips are coming up now.

So to prevent my future tears when the damn deer (and no you can’t shoot her Jeff) (yet) eat my tulips, I went on the offensive today.

But there was just no Deer Off in the stores.

Think I’m joking? It’s really a product! It is made with stinky eggs, garlic, and pepper and keeps bunnies and squirrels away too.

I thought about fencing the entire garden, but that didn’t seem logical.

So I surrounded the tulips with tomato cages.

Still doubtful this will work at all, I tied long strings of orange flagging tape to all the cages.

I’m still not convinced this is going to stop our mischievous deer.

From the darkness I heard this

General, , ,

I was just outside with Monty on the front lawn after dark. Looking at the stars, the moon, listening the quiet lake, watching Monty wander around and pee on everything.

Then I heard this from the woods, about 30 feet from me.

http://www.myoan.net/sounds/wheeze.wav

I had no idea what it was and I wasn’t stopping to find out. I grabbed Monty’s leash and we ran like the speed of light around the front of the house and up onto the deck and into the house, the whole time sure an animal was about to sink its teeth into my jugular.

Brave Jeff went outside, armed with nothing more than a flashlight. He said he could hear a deer take off into the woods.

I am so glad I don’t live alone out here!

And interesting that I took off running. Isn’t that exactly what you aren’t supposed to do?

Where there is one… there is always TWO!

What I've Been Up To,

SO GLAD I had my front brake pads and rotors replaced last Friday.

This morning I spotted a deer crossing the road ahead of me. I hit the brakes but there was plenty of room.

Then I remembered, THERE IS ALWAYS A SECOND ONE!

So I slammed on my brakes, every thing flew off the front seat (bag, water bottle, lunch), and sure enough, there was deer #2.

If I didn’t have that instinct that there was a second, I would have hit it for sure.

Be safe, cute little deer.

Gorgeous morning for a drive

General, , ,

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I was awake at 5 this morning – I love the morning air. The sun was already up and the squirrels and chipmunks were already gorging themselves on our sunflower seeds and screaming at each other from the bushes.

Jeff’s truck is broken again (3rd time this month?) so we had to get an early start so we could get him to work (which is 25 minutes south of our house) in time for me to get all the way to my job (which is 20 minutes north of our house) before 8am.

Beautiful clear sunny morning. I didn’t see any bald eagles this time, but I finally spotted their nest overlooking the St. Mary’s River! Have you ever seen a bald eagle’s nest? They are VERY LARGE. They use the same nest year after year. I know of two local nests and they are both in big old pine trees overlooking water.

I saw 2 deer in the back corner of a wetland area too. One was standing eating grass, and the other was lounging under a tree.

Now I’m at work, blogging this quick post through my coffee break. Tonight I am “on stage” at our union local meeting. I’m the chair of the nominations committee so I am running the nominations and elections for our local executive and committees for the next two year term.

Looking forward to this coming weekend – I’m heading over to PEI to visit my Grandma and my Uncle Joe.

I’m so sad

Gardening,

The deer I shared photos of a couple mornings ago ate all my just-about-to-bloom tulips and my lilies out of my front garden over night.

I know deer eat tulips. A deer ate my tulips two years ago out of the same garden. I didn’t plant the tulips because I know deer love them. A previous home owner did. They didn’t have a great year last year, after been eaten the year before, but this year there were dozens of them just about to open.

I’ve planted a lot of daffodils since we moved here because deer don’t eat them. This deer took the time to go around every daffodil and bite the tulip stems, and leaves, right to the ground.

I wish the deer no ill will. It’s not her fault.

But I love flowers. Seeing them all gone this morning felt like someone ate the sun out of my sky. I cried. I’m sad. I know they are only flowers. But they waited all year to bloom for me. And now they are gone.

Jeff’s sacred hunting grounds

PhotoBlog, , ,

Last year for Jeff’s birthday, I bought him a trail cam. It is a camo digital camera with a picture card and a battery that you strap to a tree. It has a sensor that will trigger the camera to take a photo if an animal walks by the camera. It even has an infra-red flash so it can take photos in the dark without spooking the animals. On the bottom of each photo it records the time, the temperature, and the moon phase!

Jeff put it up where he hunts deer so he can see what deer are around, if any, and what times they are around. He put a pile of corn and apples to attract the deer.

Here are some of my favourite photos:

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There are **FIVE** deer in the one above. Can you see them all?

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Arisaig, Groceries, Caledonia church again, and Deer everywhere!

PhotoBlog, ,

We had never been to Arisaig so today we went! It’s on the northwestern coast between Pictou and Cape George – for those of you who we’ve driven around last summer. I’m pretty sure we could see PEI across the water (full of ice chunks!)

Here is a shot from the wharf along the coast:

Arisaig

There is a lighthouse restructure here with several historical plaques on the rocks. One says “The steeple of St. Margaret of Scotland Roman Catholic Church can be seen from this point. Arisaig is the site of the oldest parish of the Catholic highland settlers in Nova Scotia and the second oldest parish in the Diocese of Antigonish. The first log cabin church was built nearby. A cairn commemorates the church and the community’s ancestors. A second church was built near the existing Glebe House in 1816. The present church was completed in 1878 and dedicated to St. Margaret of Scotland.”

Here is the small lighthouse that has been rebuilt on the wharf with the year 2007 above the door.
Arisaig Lighthouse

(I *love* our new camera.)
Jeff behind the lighthouse

Did I mention how FREEZING it was?
me freezing

Here’s the Arisaig church:
Arisaig Church

Lobster season isn’t too far off!
Lobster boats

We ended up near New Glasgow so we went into town for groceries. Groceries are INSANELY expensive, but at least the bigger town had a bigger selection. Heads of iceburg lettuce – $2.69 ! No baby spinach leaves under $4.50. You would keel over if you saw the amount of money we pay for groceries here in Nova Scotia.

We took a long drive back and ended back in the Caledonia area where we were a few weeks ago. I couldn’t wait to stop and see the old church we saw last time with our new camera.

Lower Caledonia Church

I’ve never seen stained glass peel off before! I don’t think it was real stained glass!
old church window

Here is the out house for this old church:
church outhouse

I can’t wait to see this place again when the snow is gone. I’m too shy to peak in the old windows, but I just love the history of the place.

I wished we had taken photos last time of this orchard we saw that had electric fences and there were deer inside the fence. Well we drove by it again, and there were still deer inside the orchard – with two layers of electric fencing!!

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More deer across the road. We saw MANY MANY deer today.

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I just can’t get enough of the old farmhouses. I always have been so intrigued by them. I always think of someone like Charles Ingles building a beautiful house for their wife and growing family and how proud they would be of what they built with their hands. And think how sad they would be to see their beautiful workmanship today:

old house

old house

There was a bit of open water on the lake one south of ours. Here are a couple ducks.
ducks

And more deer!
deer

Oh Deer! Happy Birthday to me, Steve French, and Bye bye Flu flu!

What I've Been Up To, ,

Yesterday was my 33rd birthday and I spent it at home recovering from the flu. At least I didn’t have to go to work on my birthday!

I somehow caught a 3 day flu (I blame germy doorknobs and grocery cart handles!). I had a fever, tossed my cookies, was achy and moany, had a headache, and just generally whined a lot. By yesterday evening I was cured.

It must have been because my sweetheart of a husband stopped by at lunch yesterday to bring me a strawberry shake from McDonald’s, a chocolate birthday cake, and a big bouquet of flowers! Awwww!

Today I was back at work and received a delivery of more flowers! Dad, Patti-Jo, and Patrick had a vase delivered to my desk full of flowers (and water!) I’m so spoiled.

Mom got me beautiful 14K gold pearl earrings in a beautiful silver jewelry box. They are very pretty!

Today winter arrived – well not officially – but we finally got snow! And lots of it! Jeff had to close his office early and send everyone home because the roads were so bad.

I was following a really slow person home at 15 km/hr. The highway was really greasy. She was going so slow, and driving in the middle road, that I realized I was soon going to get stuck if she didn’t speed up.

Well, she didn’t speed up. Instead she stopped completely, in the middle of the road!!

I felt bad, because the truth is this lady has no business driving. I get stuck behind her often driving to and from work. I don’t know anything about her, other than she is female, short, and always drives (slowly) with her left tires in the left lane. I have to pass her often. Well today I had to pass her after she parked in the middle of the snowy highway.

I did feel bad for leaving her, obviously panicked, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not about to tow her car behind mine, or leave her’s in the middle of the road, and there were other cars behind me.

So I carried on. I knew I had to pick up speed if I was going to make it up the snow covered hills so I set a good pace of 50km/hr.

Darkness came and I stayed calm and drove on towards the warmth of home when a large doe walked out of the woods and proceeded up the side of the ditch.

I somehow kept my wits about me. I knew I had a really good chance of hitting her. And I knew if I panicked and hit the brakes too hard I would spin out on the greasy thick snow and if I didn’t hit her, I’d surely hit the deep ditch.

I eased the brake on a little and watched her walk up on to the road. I knew at the last minute I could break and take a hard right if I could get behind her back legs. She didn’t seem to notice me at all and proceeded to walk right across the road, inches in front of my car.

WHEW.

Dodged a real bullet.. I mean deer..

When I got home I gunned it hard and spun my way up the driveway. Jeff had called my cell before I left work and said he had driven up and down the driveway a couple of times to left a path for my car to get up.

I made it on the first shot but by the smell of rubber lingering in the air, I might have left some of my winter tires on the slope of the driveway.

Last night a person contacted me by email for a kitten. I told her about Steve French and took some photos of him and we emailed back and forth. She has an 8 month old kitten and it looking for a playmate for him. The catch is she lives in New Glasgow, and not only do I have to drive him to her, I have to give her $30 to cover half of his neuter surgery. I guess that is a small price to pay compared to keeping him for the rest of his life. He is a real nice cat – he sure loves his food though! I think he’s going to be a big boy!