My mom is the female equivalent to Doctor Dolittle. Seriously. Over the years we have had horses, miniature horses, dogs, miniature dogs (aka rats...jk Ellie & Snoop!), cats, fish and even a gecko that was supposedly my sisters but she never really took care of it. I'm still pushing for a miniature donkey but I haven't quite won that battle yet. This is what my mom does. Aside from raising three wonderful (if I do say so myself) children, being a fabulous cook, being arm candy for my dad at countless 'fuuunctions' and being an all around fabulous women, she is constantly nursing animals back to health, brushing them, feeding them and for three hours of every day, rain or shine, she shovels their shit. This is my beautiful, blonde, blue eyed mom. This woman finds riding the lawn mower meditative. She seriously lives in a zen-like world with our surrounding environment. The deer would high-five her, I swear, if she put her hand out. My dad is funny about animals too. No wonder they work so well together. My dad set's live traps for the racoons that sometimes sneak in the barn (we had one of our barn kitties mauled by an evil racoon once so now whenever there is evidence one is living near by the traps are immediately set). I never understood what my dad did once the coon is actually in the trap until one day he explained how he 'takes 'em to church'. Meaning he drives them out to a big field behind a church near by and lets them go. Weird, yes. But still, moderately sweet. Most people just shoot the ugly rodents.
So even though my parents love the animals that live on our property like they were their own pets, they still don't want to feed their buddies the deer our brand new apple trees. My parents planted 6 little saplings in the backyard and we just found out a unique, peaceful way to keep our friends, the deer away. If you put sheep's wool on the branches of the little apple trees the deer, for some reason, won't come near them. They won't eat the apples and they won't try to scratch the velvet off of their antlers on the tiny little tree trunks. Something a little different but I'll be sure to let you know if it works! I actually heard you can use human hair too, but that seems a little too creepy for me! So if you are having problems with your deer eating your fruit trees, there's a possible solution for you! :)
- Lizzie