The Four Letter Word--- DEER!

Today, my daughter and I took a small walk around the yard to see what is popping up. The weather here has been bouncing between warm (low 60's) to cool (low 40's) in the past few weeks. All the snow has finally melted and we actually had several days of rain causing the fear of flooding in lowland areas like Millvale, Etna, Sharpsburg, etc. Even Downtown Pittsburgh had posted warnings. In the end, we weathered fine and aside from small areas of flooding, we escaped pretty much unscathed.

The weather we've been having is prime for spring bulbs. As mentioned in my last blog post, I didn't think I'd have much to admire this year due to my lack of motivation in the fall. I was SO wrong! If I had planted all the bulbs in my garage, I'd have had an astronomical amount of flowers. At this point, I'm dabbling on an insane amount. This is wonderful for me and also for the four letter, four legged friends, DEER.

Upon my inspection this morning with my daughter, I found almost all of my crocus are gone, the few tulips I have in are gone and my hyacinth are gone. I want to cry. Being the semi rational person I am, I know crying won't solve anything, so next is to take action. I am going to the garden center today to find something to chase them away. I'd like to find something earth friendly, unstinky, and effective. I've heard of the egg and milk in water, but that takes too long to make, at this point. I've read about soap- I think these deer are too smart for that. UGH. So it looks like a call to "country mouse" for some advice. After all, she chases black bear from her yard--- she has to have a solution for deer.

SPRING BULBS!!!

I know it is not proper grammar to use more than one exclamation point. However, after the winter we've weathered (no pun intended), there aren't enough exclamation points in the universe to show my excitement for the spring bulbs popping up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seeing these brave little soldiers, popping their heads above ground, while the snow is still lying around makes my world. It feels like Mother Nature is calling from below ground, saying, "Don't worry. I have not forgotten you." A bundle of love in the form of flowers. I heart Mother Nature!

Last fall I was in a funk..... a BIG funk and so I did not plant my usual 200+ bulbs. I did dig them out at the end of last spring and put them away for fall, but just didn't have the ambition to do it. And I kick myself every time I think of it. Seeing crocus, daffodils, hyacinth, tulips, etc helps me to realize that winter is almost over and that I can hang in there a few more weeks. So the only bulbs popping up this spring are the ones I missed last year. This is bad news for the deer who LOVED my red tulips last year. My neighbor would try to shoo them every morning as she pulled out of her driveway, to no avail. Sorry deer, maybe next year.

New to my spring line is garlic. In the fall, a trip to the garden center yielded a cool talk with a few of the garden gals. They talked me into planting two different types of garlic. So I have those in and I believe I need to cut them back twice in order to produce bulbs. I'll be googling that later. For now, I have pictures of the spring bulbs I missed last year (YEAH!) and soon I will be taking pictures of the garlic.