A great deal of our energy on the island, well at least the gardener’s energy on this island is spent trying to grow food and flowers which the deer can’t or won’t eat.

It isn’t just the deer, it’s the rabbits and raccoons, birds, voles even the mice. They all try to eat our garden treasures and we try to stop them. It’s a game and the wildlife and the gardeners are on opposing teams. I don’t begrudge their perseverance and have even been known to feed the deer an apple or two…

Our garden fence is eight feet high with an electric wire around the top. If a raccoon tries to climb over the fence he gets a wee jolt.. Don’t worry it isn’t horrid. I’ve tested it on myself. There is barbed wire across the top too. Just in case… The fencing is buried several inches under the ground other wise rabbits will go under the bottom. When there is only a rock surface and no dirt and I can’t bury the fencing I pile tons of big rocks  on a foot of fencing laying across the rock surface… (does that make sense?)…. We have clever raccoons though and they move these twenty pound rocks and get under the fence to eat my figs and pears.. They seem to like the challenge..  The voles and rabbits tunnel through rockery walls to eat my tomatoes and peas…. sigh.. Netting protects my strawberries from birds but the mice get them from underneath. It’s fun. It’s a game! 

The pond in the garden has a net over it to protect the fish from the Kingfisher birds and Heron. The placement of the rocks around the pond prohibits raccoons from fishing but we have otter in the neighbourhood who would love to get in the garden for a snack of goldfish….

Until this week.. the garden was well and truly safe from the opponents in my garden game. They couldn’t get in no matter how hard they tried. and they do try.

There isn’t really anything in bloom right now in the flower area of the garden. June is when it is at its fullest beauty. A few hyacinth and that’s about it right now. The vegie area is a sea of weeds, I won’t want to plant much there til May..So we have a bit of time.

Right now, half the fence is down and the greenhouse is gone. Today, E was going to buck the log up so we could try to restore some of the fencing. But the chainsaw had other ideas. So, I cleaned up the debris and burned more of the greenhouse mess on a burn pile. You probably heard E swearing at his chainsaw. Apparently, there is no amount of swearing which is going to solve our chainsaw’s problems. It needs a new chain.

The log didn’t get bucked and the garden is wide open to wildlife for probably a few more days. When I packed up my tools and headed down to the house at the end of my day today, I might just as well have posted a sign for the deer and otter on the garden gate saying

have at it.