Perimeter protection

I've been doing little else but deer fencing lately. You'll get different opinions about how high that deer can actually jump. I've heard some stories that they can clear as much as 9 or 10 feet, but I am hoping they are wrong. The spec for deer fence grants is only about 6 feet, so I am doing that on the sides farthest away from the deer and where it would be awkward for them to get to, and going up to 8 feet on the sides that deer are most likely to come from.

Over the past few weeks I've put in more than 100 posts, and it was nice to see them around the boundary. Maybe that was a proprietary feeling "this is OUR LAND", or maybe I just enjoyed the visual confirmation of my labour. In any case, now that we are hanging the high fence wire on the posts, it has lost some of its appeal. My first reaction looking up at 8 feet of wire was that it's a lot like the Tyrannosaurus Rex fence in Jusassic Park (see photo). Regardless of what height deer can allegedly jump, everyone at least agrees that if they <em>do</em> get over, they will devastate our fruit trees in a single night, so that's possibly not such an inaccurate analogy.

On other fronts, the track up to the land is much improved on the bits where it was bad, but now the upper part is starting to get muddy! Will it ever stop? It's scary how much money we've already spent to get that track right, and more will be needed.