We approached our home and noticed that the doe had been joined by nearly a dozen family members, all standing in the front yard across the street from our house. Earlier in the day I decided to set up the two water scarecrow, motion detector sprinklers on the driveway side of our yard, but hadn't planned on running them yet, thinking that the deer wouldn't be interested yet in our tiny seedlings, or wish to navigate the maze of trays and pots. But after seeing Bambi and her family, Sue suggested it was time. And so I activated the sprinklers and turned on the water.
I owe Sue big time! This morning I woke to find that a deer clearly was starting to take an interest in the plants, and when the sprinklers went off, must have startled it into jumping out of range. There was only one fatality - a Chinese Five Color hot pepper, which may have been the first little (as in tiny) munch. But when startled, the deer jumped in two areas, crunching the Five Color area, as well as (of course), the Sungold region. But, repotting the dozen disturbed seedlings showed that everything else was just fine (well, maybe - one Sungold could be fatally impacted; it is recovering in the garage).
Yesterday, a chat with some neighbors centered on their recent coyote sighting. Deer, coyote, and inevitable return of the groundhog - what else? Now I get to add deer-created nervousness to my spring list of tasks....in all of our years here, they've not gone after our baby seedlings yet - then again, up until last year, we'd not suffered a garden groundhog attack. We shall see what happens next!