More deer

This picture was taken Friday morning through a window. Two male deer were browsing their way across the back yard. They seemed to be eating Virginia creeper and grape vine leaves. We had seen one of them before, but now we saw two males at the same time. One of my neighbors said she has seen four deer all at once in her yard-- male, female, and two fawns. My husband thinks these might be two brothers, perhaps two years old, since they are keeping company together.

It has been a challenge to keep them from eating the antique roses this summer. I spray with Liquid Fence every weekend, but the daily rains, sometimes very heavy, have been washing it off. We have had two dry days since I sprayed on Thursday, so the roses have been able to put out some new growth. Years ago, I planted the roses to have some variety of plants. They don't attract butterflies or hummingbirds. The songbirds sometimes eat the rose hips. So I keep growing them and spraying them. But with the number of deer in the neighborhood increasing, the roses are under constant attack. I might not have planted them in the first place if I had known they would just be nibbled down to bare sticks by deer.