The Deal with the Deer & the Rabbits

We have a lot of wildlife on the three-quarter. Let me explain that. Growing up in Iowa the farm land was nicknamed by its acreage, as in, I’m gonna take the truck down the lane to the “eighty,” or, we need to drive the cows over to the back “forty.” So, here in Eagan we have the “three-quarter.” Our three-quarters of an acre starts at the street and goes down in a slice of pie shape to the pond, which looks amazing in April and fills with algae by mid-May. We are lucky to have this piece of nature, nestled in the suburbs, for sure. Another time I can tell you how Bill found it in 2000, but suffice it to say, it took vision to imagine a house at the top of a grapevine-covered scrap-tree-ancient-farmland hill. There were also months of removing barbed wire fencing half buried all over the property.

I digress from the wildlife. Perhaps another story about the history of our lot and the building of the House of Stone and Light is brewing under this blog entry. Naming the house took time, “Fern Haven” sounded like a nursing home or a pet cemetery. “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” No. Other names were rejected as well. The House of Stone and Light stuck because of our big east facing windows and the stone chimneys built from the fieldstones harvested from Grandpa’s original back forty.

The wildlife. . .  we have a lot. We host deer, rabbits, raccoon, possum, wild turkeys, coyotes, squirrels, chipmunks, eagles and a bunch of other birds. Before the coyotes came there were foxes and wood chucks. Down at the pond there are additional wild fowl, identifiable with binoculars during certain times of the year. But this—is mostly about the deer and rabbits.

I have two hobbies outside music: hiking and gardening. Come to think of it. . . I guess writing this is a third hobby. Chuckle…I just made myself laugh forgetting that I love to write, while writing. . .  But I love my garden so much. There’s nothing noble here, no vegetables for the food pantry, it’s all just a creative canvas that serves to link nature, mind and muscle, beauty, botany, and history. I’m on the 25th year here and patterns have long been established. The triumphs and struggles of the relentless seasons. The lush summer, the crisp fall and the long winter serve their purpose, but spring is where the magic happens. As the grey turns to green mist each spring, the very first step in the garden is to train the deer and rabbits. It’s never clear why, when they have a whole ravine of native flora, they would choose hostas, pansies, and other man-planted delicacies.

So, we have to train them. I buy Liquid Fence brand repellent by the concentrate. I mix it up in used Mrs. Meyers countertop spray bottles. I keep one in my garden tote, a couple in the garage, and a few under the screen porch. It’s good to be prepared for anything. Liquid Fence works. It also repels husbands and neighbors. At least until it dries. When I come in the house, the cats just stare at me until I shower.

As young grandchildren, we would complain about the smell around the Iowa farm hog shed. My grandpa would say “it smells like money to me.” That bad smell put good food on the table. To me, the foul smell of Liquid Fence is like the aroma of actually being able to even have a garden. Without it all would be lost. Chomped down to a stub. Try again next year. Truthfully, I don’t even smell it anymore.

So, in May, after the snow melts, once everyone (I’m personifying my plants here) is up, I can spray the entire garden in just under 15 minutes. I have a gun (a Mrs. Meyers) in each hand. I feel so powerful. I am the protector of my domain. The shepherd of the sheep. No child left behind. Every leaf is sacred.

To be clear, the bunnies don’t need my petunias for nutrition. They are already fat from cleaning up the leftover bird seed the chickadees toss aside from the feeder. Who knows why 3 out of 5 safflower nuts get tossed to the ground. Are they stale? The wrong shape? Quality control? There are so many questions. The seeds all look the same to me. Luckily, nothing is wasted, the chipmunks, squirrels and bunnies tidy it all up.

The deer? Once everything is sprayed, they leave it alone. But there is still the vandalism. It feels like they just knock down baby aspens for sport. They bust them off at about two feet high. Complete ruin. You see, I’m curating some of them, these volunteer aspens, they can migrate across an entire state you know. But, when they move into a less then desirable neighborhood, (like on the foot path) they take no offense to being trimmed at the root. They just continue their underground journey and come up someplace else. “Hi there, I’m an aspen.” You didn’t even notice me and now I’m six feet tall. Can I stay? Yes, dear, no deer. . . I don’t know, let me think about it for a year. If I decide to let the tree stay, the deer still may have other plans. I could spray the saplings in the winter. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. I can smell myself getting deer spray all over my coat, hat, scarf and mittens. No, it’s every aspen for himself in the winter. They are all one tree anyway you know, emmeshed by their underground network. They don’t grieve the loss of their old nor their young like we do.  

By September I have lost my steam, and the commitment to respraying after the rain wanes. The deer can have every last hosta and petunia for their end of summer reward. That’s our deal. Winter will be brutal for them.

I have a few regrets. There are some good (read expensive) evergreens I planted along the way that now look like Dr. Suess characters because they have no lower branches on account of that winter negligence I spoke of. The rabbits use the deep snow to get to the medium branches. I should have fenced them or hung little soaps on them or something. Well, it makes for interesting shapes to hang Christmas lights. Winter in Minnesota is survival of the fittest. We can only do so much. We cannot protect every tree on the three-quarter.

And that is all part of the deal, making peace with the deer and rabbits.

Lord, thank you for all your creatures, even the deer and the rabbits. Thank you for Liquid Fence, and Amazon Prime which will deliver it times of emergency. (I wonder if they have a subscribe and save option for that product?) Thank you for gardens and their glories and failures, their joys and griefs. Thank you for 25 years of my garden here, on the three-quarter, outside the House of Stone and Light. Let it bring peace to all who enter it, even the deer and rabbits. Amen