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SHARING WITH NATURE

While in the farmstore yesterday I checked out the pest department for some monkey fence or deer fence, or respective repellents, but it seems there is no market for such things here, since everyone else appears only to be bothered, if you can call it that, by dogs and foxes, who you can safely bet big bucks do not eat spinach or onions. The deer-monkey combo seems only to be a problem on the odd planet where I live.

Anyway, optimist that I am, I expect deer here are a seasonal problem, seems they move higher up the mountain as it gets warmer; the only one I've seen come down to this level after Spring was being chased by dogs. So maybe just some antler-high netting in early Spring will work, until it's blown all the way to Kyoto on the seasonal winds. If I just do nothing, though, the spinach-fattened buck will be bringing his extended family back here year after year for early Spring treats.

The big problem is the monkeys, who love challenges like fences. Monkeys can jump over or pull down or make a hole through any crude fence, or simply drop from one of my gracefully spreading cherry trees into any strongly fenced enclosure of the type I will never put in my garden in a million years. Thus, by careful process of elimination I draw closer and closer to the perfect solution. How much is a prime parcel of Arctic land with a water view?