FarmerMan has fenced in our peach trees. Do you see that the left side of the tree is bare? There is another peach tree next to it, and it looks just the same.
We had apple trees growing in the same two spots for the last few years, and they were always bare on that east side, just like this peach tree. We thought we had a strange weather environment in just that small spot because the rest of our fruit trees were fine. Or maybe there was a type of bug that ate only part of the tree because they were too lazy to fly or crawl to the other side.
We had two fig trees that were west of the two suffering apple trees that also finally died after all their fruit that was almost ripe disappeared and their leaves were stripped. We pulled up the dead trees, so they wouldn’t spread their strange virus to the rest of our trees.
When we planted the peach trees this year, FarmerMan fed and fertilized them and double-checked their irrigation. All was good until it wasn’t, and we were perplexed.
Our son visits regularly; FarmerMan showed him our troubling trees.
“Deer,” he said.
FarmerMan used what we had on hand, and the fences went up around all the peach trees. The green tape gives a little more height to the fence. We’re hoping to slow the all-you-can-eat free buffet for our deer neighbors.
Have you heard the old saying, “good fences make good neighbors”? I’m hoping our hungry neighbors decide to move on for their night time snack. I’d like to rewrite the old saying: “Good fences make absent neighbors.”
TJ and Toby, however, don’t share in our fondness for fences. They’d much prefer no fences or at least an open gate, so they could visit their friends who live half a mile away and find new friends that might be two or three miles from the farm.
Ella Fitzgerald sings TJ and Toby’s theme song: Don’t Fence Me In
My world revolves around what’s happening outside. What is your world?
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