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Heavy rain all day today. We had to run out to Oak Ridge for a dental appointment and to get some things from Home Depot - bird netting for the blueberries, insulation, more caution tape, an industrial mop bucket with wringer, caulk, carbon monoxide tester, etc.
After reading several negative reviews about the expensive hand wringers available, we've decided to try the less expensive route of a commercial mop wringer [$35] for wringing out clothes. Some of the hand wringers out there cost up to $200, and according to many people are either incredibly inefficient at wringing out the water, or tear up the clothes.
The last 2 days have spent running caution tape along the property boundary. Originally we were going to just run it around the 4 acre clearing, but following the property line will keep the tape away in the woods and less visible, and help us with ultimately siting a fence line down the boundary. The property was surveyed in 1999, and the corner posts and tree blazes are still present and clearly visible. One upshot to this work, whether it keeps out deer or not, is that we've discovered I was mistaken about the western boundary line of the property. It's much, much further back - we've realized we actually have nearly a third more land than we thought, encompassing the entire ravine area to the west. This will be a good area for goats to clear, and of course another resource for firewood as well as nice buffer to neighbors.
The caution tape so far is strung at 2.5' and 5'. Haven't heard or seen deer in a while. The long stretches of tape bounce constantly in the wind and may wind up an effective deterrent, though of course it's not the most cosmetic approach. Eventually the property line will be strung with 3 runs of unbarbed wire, and I'll weave cut brush and saplings through it to make a sort of wattle fence.
All of the birds spent the night in the coop last night, but tonight the ducks are staying out in the run. Getting an egg every day or two from Rosy still. We actually had to buy eggs today for Thanksgiving - something we haven't done the entire time up here. Next week we'll try a hatchery for increasing the flock.
Tomorrow we'll get rebar and plastic conduit for the low tunnels for the garden, as temperatures will soon be drastically cooling off.
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For your deer problem & the blueberries: have you tried fishing line? It's not too expensive, and the deer can't see it. So, when they run into it, they are frightened, and they won't try jumping over or going through it.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, if you know an avid fisherman, you can probably get their old line for free.
Just string 3 or 4 lines at varying heights to cover all ages of deer. Good luck.
Fishing line sounds like an interesting idea. I'll try it for the lower blueberries since some are over 6 feet tall and fencing is expensive. I'll still have to throw bird netting over them to protect the berries in the summer, but I could string fishing line from 10' spaced 1/2" rebar posts as an initial low-cost approach. Thanks for the tip!
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