The Ultimate Deer Repellent

Last night, I was digging through boxes in our garage, looking for my binders of clippings for a job interview I have this morning. Discovered a whole pile of other treasures in the process -- like my university transcript (I was wondering where that was!), all the essays I wrote at university, letters from my mother, every day-timer I'd ever had since becoming a reporter in 1994 . . . the list goes on.

As I was putting some of the boxes away, my children, who were lurking in garage, wanting to dig through my boxes of stuff themselves (I think not, kiddos!) happened to look out the window in door, which faces the front yard.

"MUM!!" our son  yells, "There's deer in your garden!"

I've been fighting the deer of late, after leaving my flower gardens alone all summer, they have now decided that I must've put up a salad bar for them, because they're in there every night. I've been forced to put "hats" on all my flowers - up-ended plant pots - to protect them, which seems to be working.

But since I hadn't put the hats on my plants yet - it was barely 9 p.m., I had to take other, more drastic measures, immediately. I gave our daughter the papers I had found, and sprinted for the door, grabbing our son's hockey stick on the way.

Out the door and across the lawn, I ran, in my slippers, brandishing the hockey stick and hollering at the top of my lungs - ARRRGH!!!! Get OUT of MY garden!!!!!

Those three deer didn't even stop to look at me, they took off as though the hounds of hell were after them! Probably wondering exactly what the hell kind of dog we'd gotten! Of course, the neighbours are probably still wondering what we were up to!

The kids brought me the hats for the plants and together we covered them up, while my husband went looking in the bush, to make sure the deer weren't trying to sneak back into the yard. They were long gone.

Did I find my box with all the clippings? Nope, it's still in the seacan, I guess. It's certainly not in the house, so I guess I'll just have to wing it. And make up one of those deer repellent potions after my interview. I can't spend every night running around in the yard, in my slippers, screaming and waving a hockey stick!