The house we bought in 2020 is on a secondary road. When we looked at the house that January, it was mild. No snow on the ground. Our realtor was trying to get the lockbox code. While she was doing that, we toured our spacious backyards.
Some of the first things we noticed were the various amount of birds. The dirt road on the other side of our furthest back fence. The wooded areas.
At the time, there was an apple, pear, cherry, and peach tree on the property. We also had multiple berry bushes and grape vines. I immediately had big visions about adding a vegetable garden and converting the larger of the two backyards into a food source for us.
Well...
That didn't exactly happen.
In June 2020, we had peaches that began to grow.
Gorgeous cherries exploded on our cherry tree, but so did the Cedar Waxwing birds. A specie we had never seen before. At times, we would see a dozen in the tree at one time.
They love cherries too.
We also have an abundance of wildlife including woodchucks, foxes, bobcats, and fisher cats.
And. Deer.
Our sweet neighbors who have lived here for years told us that when their apple tree produced apples, the bears would come around.
After our first Summer here, we knew that utilizing our backyards as a food source would be challenging.
Or.
Impossible.
That Summer, the wildlife ate all the fruit from the apple, pear, peach, and cherry trees. They devoured the berries and all of the sunflowers we planted.
We learned that the former owners of our house tried to have a vegetable garden, but it was demolished by wildlife.
We also learned that the pear and peach trees were not planted correctly and were too close together.
The cherry tree was way overgrown and hadn't been tended to for many years.
We cut everything down.
In 2021 and 2022, we supported our local farmers and bought fresh produce from Spring until early Fall.
This year, I was determined to convert a portion of our backyard into a vegetable garden. I did hours of research. I thought I had it nailed down.
Then...
About a month ago, Lisa and I went onto our raised back porch to sit. It was a little after 9 p.m. I was the first on the porch. I noticed a shadow at one of our bird feeders.
I whispered to Lisa, "That shadow looks like a deer..."
She snickered.
"That's because it is a deer."
We sat there and listened to the deer chomping on the seed from our birdfeeders.
We could hear another deer in our neighbor's yard.
A few nights later, the same thing.
Then, last week, we were sipping coffee on our porch and saw 3 deer run through our neighbor's yard.
They ran off.
Less than an hour later, we went back to the porch and saw the 3 deer again. That's when I snapped the photo. One of the deer had run into the woods.
At this point, I realized that my vigilant plants would not work in our favor this year.
In order to build what we needed and wanted, the cost would be astronomical because of the cost of wood, supplies, soil, seeds, etc.
I am guessing close to $800.
If we decided to go that route, we don't have a guarantee that the wildlife wouldn't consider our efforts a "buffet" for them.
I've seen it happen to friends and family. Year after year after year.
I finally threw up my hands.
Threw in the white flag.
We would rather spend a few hundred dollars supporting our local farmers by visiting farmstands, orchards, farmers' markets, etc.
One of these years, we will figure it out.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Either way, we will be feasting happily on local produce most of the year.
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