It snowed overnight! It’s still snowing, and we have five or 6 inches of new snow. The temperature is 29°F or -2°C. Here I was thinking of gardening. That’s not surprising because we plant tender vegetables in the garden only after Memorial Day. We still have a couple of months until the gardening season starts.
It’s been a hard winter for the deer. The snow was deep enough to limit their ability to move around. Most of the snow came with quite a bit of wind, so there were many drifts. The drifts in our forest areas were at least as high as the deer’s legs are long. If you’ve ever done what we call “breaking trail,” making your way through snow that has not been touched, you know how taxing it is. It’s why snowshoes are a necessity if you want to move around. Deer don’t have any choice but must break trail.
Deer will browse. They will eat the tender shoots of shrubs and trees. That’s the reason they tend to destroy household plantings. They think we plant those good-tasting ornamental shrubs just for them. The woods around here are not climax forests. You will find many shrubs and trees like Aspen and Jackpine. Many climax forests do not provide enough food for deer to survive.
However, many of the does here are pregnant and nearing when they will give birth. If our weather doesn’t turn around, many of the fawns will die. Mother nature can be very cruel to the critters around here.
