Keeping Animals in and keeping Animals out

I began weeding in the front garden this morning and soon saw that we had had a visitation from the deer in the night, as evidenced by the remains of their meal. I have been very patient up to now but enough is enough. Jean-Jacque and Nadine have been telling us for weeks that the deer are very partial to roses. I have chosen to ignore their comments as I have designed the garden to be full of roses. However, I fear they are right, so today drastic measures were required. I found an enormous ball of string in the barn which I wound round the trees boardering our front garden. However that is only one of many entrances, no doubt they will find the others with no trouble and it is impossible to barricade them all - but it made me feel better.

My anti deer measures did not stop there. We had a roll of wire netting in the barn which I had retrieved from the undergrowth when we moved in. I knew it would come in handy one day. I used it to cover the "cheapie" roses (which so far have not been attacked). With the remainder I fashioned sort of cloches to go over other roses and finished off using twigs to make a wigwam over some other plants. The idea is that the deer will not notice the nice juicey new shoots. Yes John thought my efforts were completely useless too - but he wasn't quite so polite about it!!

Meanwhile he has been busy building cat pens in the pigsty. Half of the porcherie has been given over to the cats and the remainder I can still use as a potting shed (to raise fodder for the deer). We have agreed that we will look after our friends' cats and they will reciprocate. It will be much cheaper and neither of us are very impressed with the cattery we used to use since it has been taken over. The carpenter has just got to fit the wire to the frame. I can stop nagging now.