When we first moved to our new homestead here at Pokeberry Pines, some folks (i.e. my dad!) thought we were crazy for investing our energy and money putting in a deer fence around the property. But we had seen evidence of deer browse in both the front yard and down by our creek, and we planned to plant a bunch of food in our gardens, native plants for pollinators, and more. We knew we better do something to protect those plants or we’d be wasting a lot of time, energy and money on them.

During the past few months we’ve seen deer run through our front yard (which is not fenced), and last week at about 7 o’clock in the morning I watched two young bucks saunter right past the gate that leads out to our meadow. We’ve also noticed where they bed down just outside our front treeline.

When we got a trail camera, we wanted to document the critters that wander around our property. We had gotten a couple of cool pics and videos of a fat opossum, a bunny, some squirrels, and a big gray fox…

But we had not captured images of any deer – until last night. Yesterday we decided to put the camera right on one of the trails we built that leads between the house and the creek, and in just one night we captured all of this activity! (see video below)

That’s why we put up the deer fence, and boy we are glad we did. We love the animals, but we want to keep our plants alive and happy, too.