What did you do today? What are you doing today?

Watching old episodes of The Paper Chase. 

I signed up.  Since that other board is closed more than it's opened I guess I'll put my stupid rants here during the down times.  

Since last Thursday there has been a bitter battle between DiO and Deer.


Background: several years ago I cut down an apple tree whose roots had extended into the drain field of my septic system. That left one apple tree standing on my property. It takes two apples trees for cross-pollination and to produce fruit. Obviously a neighbor in the area had an apple tree as my remaining tree kept producing many hundreds of apples. That neighbor’s apple tree must have been cut down last spring as my tree produced less than a handful of apples this past year. I don’t eat the apples and let the next door neighbor take as many as he wants because his wife loves them in the pies she bakes. The rest I let fall to the ground in late Fall to feed the whitetail deer in the harsh winter months. (The neighbor has his own battle going on with gray herons. He built a small wildlife area on his property and put in an artificial stream and a couple of small ponds that he stocked with exotic koi. The heron keep eating them. But he foolishly registered that section of his property as a wildlife refuge, or something, and therefore cannot legally do anything to discourage the heron, except for getting a dog... but I digress).



Without their apple offerings, the deer this year have decided to jump the fence that I have in part of the backyard, and where a couple of bird feeders are located. The snow gives the deer’s hoof prints away. It’s bad enough a cabal of a half-dozen fearless squirrels (gray and red) consider the bird feeders their own, but I can deal with them and just up the amount of sunflower seeds in my super secret special birdseed mix. The deer are another matter as they empty the feeders overnight. In an attempt to commune with nature (roll eyes) I purchased about 200 pounds of deer corn in bags yesterday and 2 salt licks. I turned on my trail cam to see if the plan will work (I’ll check out the camera next weekend). Last year I got a cool picture of a deer and rabbit squaring off. This morning there was still birdseed in the feeders so maybe we’ve come to an agreement. I plan on putting about 25 pounds of corn out every 3-4 days.



The wife says I should plant another apple tree on the property but I told her that would take about 3 to 4 years to become effective. I planted 2 plum trees and 2 pear trees a couple of years ago and they still haven’t flowered. Hopefully the corn and salt will do the trick, otherwise it will be a low-powered BB gun to the a$$ in an all-night covert operation to help them understand boundaries. And if that fails they should be warned a really nice sale on a Savage Axis .308 with scope caught my eye when I was buying the corn and salt.
Jerky…. Yummmmm.
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Went to get a pair of prescription sunglasses for driving and that were shock resistant for eye protection when working with power tools. An extra $400 for progressive lenses (‘no-line’ lenses) because I need bifocals. I told them give me the damn lines for that price!