osprey94's Blog

I love 'em and I hate 'em. On misty mornings, when they're peacefully grazing in the field next to our house, I love 'em. When they are curled up in the tall grass near the forest at sunset, I love 'em. When I get home from work and find my wild lilac literally PULLED out of the GROUND and my redtwig dogwoods almost completely defoliated by them...I HATE them. But only for a few seconds. It's not their fault. They're doing what they do. And I planted one of their favorite foods (dogwood) right where they could go to town on them. My fault.

Here's the lilac as I found it today. I nestled it back in the soil just now. I don't think they'll try eating it again. They're too tough to munch and they know that now after sampling it, yanking it out of the ground and leaving it there virtually unharmed!:

And here's the poor little dogwood:

Doesn't look that bad, until you see the before:

Ah, poor baby. Sigh. I HAD to have a redtwig dogwood. I was just hoping against hope that they'd magically ignore them. Ha!

Anyway, here's my temporary solution:

I'm not sure it's stable enough, but for now, it'll have to do.

So, deer? Maybe you could just leave me the dogwoods? You can have the ENTIRE forest, if I can just have my dogwoods. Please?