Oh Deer!!!

I have a very friendly deer that visits occasionally. I don't know if it is the same one each time because she doesn't have any distinguishing marks on her. However, she loves tulips, hostas and hollyhocks. Every time one gets a bud on it - she eats it. I have moved the tulips to another flower bed closer to the house and the hosta has more leaves so it is still there. I have wanted hollyhocks for some time and finally found some lovely double bloomed ones that were actually in flower. I planted them one evening and I checked them the next morning - one had the whole top bit off. They now have a lovely fence around them. I am hoping that she didn't really like the taste of them because she only ate one. I have my fingers crossed.

An unusual home made bird feeder.

I am going to give you a sneak peak at one of the bird feeders in my yard. The bottom was the base of an old, small table I used to have. The top was no longer usable so it was taken off and the bottom part makes a great base for a bird feeder. The tray part is a plastic dish that is used for under flower pots. A little strip of velcro has attached the tray to the base and voila!!! a bird feeder.

Bears, Bears and more Bears

Okay - now I am not a happy camper!!  All of my indoor houseplants are out on the deck for the summer.  When I say all of them I had about 60 potted plants that I put out there every year.  This summer has been the worst yet encountered because between the bears and the raccoons I now have 28 on the deck, 3 back in the house, 4 in the back porch and a whole lot of little bits sitting in water hoping they will take root.  I had a yearling bear on my deck the other night. Now that in itself is not that unusual as I regularly get animals wandering around my yard and they often come up on the deck to investigate but this time was different.  He left his mom down by the road and decided to do more than investigate the things on my deck. He bit holes in my water container then upset it, smashed flower pots, bit plants in half, tossed some off the deck onto the ground and finally woke me up in the middle of the night with his antics.  I say he but it could just as easily have been a she - I didn't stop to ask.  The first time I just shooed it.  It came back about 5 minutes later and this time I yelled a bit.  The third time I grabbed a stick, stomped out the door and hollered really loudly.  That one finally got it's attention and got it to realize I did not want it on my deck.  Mind you - I also woke up the downstairs neighbours with that one.

Don't get me wrong - I love the bears when they are passing through, I am just not overly impressed when they stick around and leave piles of mud (or piles of anything), broken pots and flower, and the worst part - waking up the neighbours in the middle of the night.

Things I See In My Yard

In my yard (it is pretty big compared to most I guess), I have everything from insects to moose and weeds to trees and everything in between.  I get a lot of seasonal visitors and some that come no matter what the season.  The most predominant of these are the birds.  Consequently I decided to start a website to sell bird feeders and it grew to include not only outdoor birds supplies but indoor as well.  I haven't finished it yet because it started out as an experiment just to see if I could do it.  After all, I am not a spring chicken any more and thought maybe an older person would have a hard time getting these ideas on paper let along be able to do anything with it.
Would you believe I am now taking courses to learn how to do all this and am having a great time learning it all even if it is a little overwhelming at times. 

I hope you enjoy reading about the joys and antics that go on in my yard and look forward to hearing about yours as well.