Sunflower Wars and Happy 4th!

I planted three fields of sunflowers this year and I'm fighting to save a portion of one of them.  The rest have been lost to deer and weeds.

I was sitting on the porch at 5:00pm and saw this.

Can you believe it? A deer inside the plot-saver tape munching away on the sunflowers.  I yelled at her and chased her away.  When I came back 5 minutes later, there was a little buck in there.

I went over to check the pumpkins, and there were deer prints everywhere.

And in the plot, chomped stems.

Lots of chomped stems.

I thought the tape might be a little low this year so I went and got some fence posts to add another layer of tape.

I only did two sides of the the plot.  Might have been wasted effort.  Time will tell.

Later, when I checked my trail cameras, I noticed something in the background.

As if I needed more evidence.

This field was planted in sunflowers.  They germinated nicely but were browsed heavily.  Then the pigweed took over.  I decided to just spray this one to kill it.  I sure don't want all of that pigweed going to seed.

In this field, I planted some clover and chicory with the sunflowers.  The sunflowers have been hammered by the deer and there is a lot of grass (probably johnson grass).  I decided to mow this one and see if the clover and chicory can compete.

It seemed like we had a lot of rain but only 1/2 inch in the gauge.

On my walk, I found this maple down across a trail.

We have a ton of milkweed but I haven't seen the first monarch yet.

Poop of the week - a bomb in the orchard.

The pond is still running a bit low - even with the aerator only running at night.

My company came up with these handy giveaways.  Magnetic beer koozies. 

Dinner in the gazebo.

A relaxing evening.

For the 4th, we went to the fireworks at King Island.  They also have a drone show.

Hope that you had a great holiday.  

This weekend celebrated by picking more wineberries and stopping at Dairy Queen for some ice cream to go with them.

Chores - mowing.

Spot spraying.

Hens and poults on the trailcams.

We haven't seen bobcats in awhile but they're back.

The fox.

Coyote.

Some young bucks.

The fish-poaching heron.

A faceoff between a doe and a skunk.

The fawn that seemed to have some eye issues.

Twin fawns.

Check out the ticks on this doe.  How do they stand it?