Sights around the ‘hood

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Source: WTOP

I’m always surprised at how much more you observe when you walk in my neighborhood during the early morning.

A home in a neighborhood adjacent to mine, has a statue of the Blessed Mother in the front yard. It looks just like the one in church only it is two foot tall and surrounded by flowers. When I was a kid all devout Catholics (those were the ones that were going to heaven for sure!) had a picture of the pope hung in the kitchen (on wallpaper with teapots) and a statue of Mary in their flower patch. I haven’t seen that in 50 years.

One of my neighbors had towels draped over her plants. All over the yard! Looked weird so I took a better look. (Where is my camera when I need it?) She was trying to protect her day lilies from becoming dinner for the local deer population. There was no color coordination with the towels so it was a patchwork pattern that made me wonder what her bathrooms looked like. Some things require extreme measures including going public with your bizarre color choices.

This is Lily our resident deer. She took a selfie of herself on our night camera.

Speaking of extreme measures, several years ago we bought a dog pen with a people door to surround our vegetable garden. I was tired of rigging up temporary fencing to keep wildlife (unsuccessfully) out of my garden. It was the best investment we made for our garden although initially it brought the cost of our tomatoes to around $25 a pound. You can read about that adventure here. It was a lot cheaper than having the same fence done by a fence company. Last week I noticed a lot of deer poop outside the fence. The herd must have been there salivating over my (out of reach) tomatoes!

Today is gorgeous in the ‘hood. Hope it is wherever you are too!

78 thoughts on “Sights around the ‘hood”

  1. Excellent solution to stymy the efforts of the local deer from shoplifting in your garden! I love the deer-selfie. The only captures we get on our camera are cats, skunks, and raccoons. {Damn raccoons} An occasional deer would certainly liven things up a lot!

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  2. I love the early mornings too. Before I retired I was a nurse and often started work at 7 a.m.. I never saw deer but once I surprised a fox family playing in a Bristol garden just round the corner from the BBC natural history unit.

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  3. While I sympathize with keeping the deer away from the day lilies, if they cover the flowers with tea towels, they have effectively also removed the flowers, since SEEING them is the point, right?
    In fact, based on your description, it sounds like it might be WORSE than beheaded plants. People lose sight of the goal in the effort to reach it sometimes. 🤦‍♀️

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  5. It looks like you have an interesting neighborhood. We never see deer in town here. I’m always a little bit excited when I come across a deer–or any other wild life for that matter.

    Things do look different and special when you get outside early. I’m not a real early bird though. I like stepping outside at night, even for a few minutes, to look for the moon.

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    • Taking a walk in “off times” when the neighborhood is quiet is wonderful. On Sundays, you can walk later and still get the serene feeling of a weekday in the very early hours. I appreciate wildlife too. I would prefer if they didn’t dine in my yard but…tradeoffs!

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  7. I am amazed at the amount of deer you have trying to get at your garden. I know you live within or near a preserve but good heavens! The dog kennel is a great idea. We had deer in Missouri in the country but they rarely came close to the house to eat anything. Maybe it was fear from the deer season that began in November. I would think they would learn pretty quick that it wasn’t a friendly area. They did feast on the fallen acorns in the fall. We only had a crucifix on the wall and it was a bit traumatic. We had a bible too but it collected a lot of dust. I didn’t think they was anything out there that would eat those green Japanese Beetles!

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    • We had a crucifix too. That was the other thing you were guaranteed to see. There is no hunting in the preserve and there are no natural predators except cars. The herds seem to get bold some years but I’m sure nature has it’s way of thinning.

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  9. It was gorgeous in our ‘hood too Kate – let’s bottle it up for the impending heat and stormy days ahead. I remember my grandmother had the Pope’s picture on the wall and likewise the statue in the garden. A few people in my ‘hood, still have the Blessed Mother status in their yard. The deer was a nice touch to the yard; too bad he had his designs on the daylilies though.

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  10. I don’t know much about this but I live in wine country and have seen shiny streamers used to keep the birds and deer away. They are different colours on each side (usually red on one side and silver or gold on the other) and glitter and sparkle and move in the least wind. These won’t work at night although I have seen very fine nets draped over the grapes for that.

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  13. I don’t think our early morning sightings can outdo the towels, but here ya go. We saw a rabbit this morning, a coon hound, a Russian hound, a small deer, a skunk without a stripe (but it did have a white tiara), thousands of chicory flowers, and 29 blackbirds eating green June beetles in someone’s yard.

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  14. Dad had a huge garden – fenced…did no good. We joked that the deer waited in the woods until everything was ripe before making their move. He used to plant sacrificial plants in the effort to redirect them.
    Had to laugh at the deer on the porch comment. In bad weather the deer herds living on the NASA grounds show up in their porches and walk throughs…they always look like “Sorry, occupied. Walk elsewhere.”

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    • So far no deer inside the garden (knock on wood). However, an occasional groundhog gets in. Also chipmunks hold tomato parties where they are not allowed to have more than one bite in a tomato before going on to the next one!

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  15. A few things noticed on recent walks………….feathers on gardens and not much else which could be pigeons or ducks (my money on the former as they are light feathers) falling victim to a visiting dog or fox, interesting ‘pouch’ style flowers as tall as sunflowers, another lawn laid with artificial grass and a house that went on the market a couple of weeks ago is now sporting a SOLD sign!

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  16. I grew up Presbyterian so no Pope in the kitchen. And no wallpaper with teapots that I remember. The kitchen wallpaper that I remember was gingham check. I’m pleased to know that you’ve taken the upper hand with your deer freeloaders. I smiled. You win… for now.

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    • 🙂 We didn’t have teapots either. My mother had great taste. I loved her wallpaper. It was venetian blinds with ivy growing on it. If I could find that wallpaper I would paper my kitchen with it. Nostalgia!

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  17. Couple things. 1) My grandma was a devout Catholic. She didn’t have a pope photo, but she had a couple of blessed mother statues around the house, along with some other saints. She also had a gigantic rosary hanging on her bedroom wall. I ended up taking that rosary and one statue as fond memories of her.
    https://loreezlane.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/grandmas-thursday-2/

    2) I can’t picture the pen you put around your garden. I’m guessing it’s like my dad’s that is tall and has a door (he lives in the wilderness in Wisconsin). We have the usual wire kind we put up every year. So far it’s kept out the wildlife, but we don’t have deer. Mostly rabbits and chipmunks.

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  19. Boy, I remember trying to keep deer out of the vegetables! The towels idea is funny though – your pen idea is much better! Also then you still have towels in the house 🙂
    I remember those Mary statues too! They have mostly disappeared – true. Though I bet it you walked around Scranton you would still see them out in force.

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    • It keeps out groundhogs although I saw a little one wiggle through the chain link. For a while I thought about lining it with chicken wire but I never did. There are different sizes too if you want something smaller although 10x 10 isn’t all that big when you consider how big vegetable plants get.

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  21. How interesting. Towels,huh? I did what you did and bought a huge kennel with a door so the birds can’t even get in, as this one has a top too. The other morning we had an entire family of deer sitting on the front porch. Just chilling. We never use that entrance so I guess they decided to. Our chickens ignored them and hopped in the rockers and just sat them out!

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