This morning we discovered a deer had eaten the sunflowers my two year old son was growing. I was very irritated at them before. Now I'm mad.

Liquid Fence works okay, but you have to reapply it often, and sometimes they get to it anyway. Like Dave, we have an acre, with woods around it - not something that can be fenced (actually that would probably keep deer IN) - and obviously we have a small child, so the electric fence won't work. It's a problem, because the deer don't just eat our trees and flowers and shrubs - they also poop them, all over the place. Not something you want when you have a toddler.

One thing I have done is get some garden caging and make round cages for new plantings. That seems to be working so far. But I didn't know I had to cage the sunflowers. Drat it.

If you've ever read Phillip Pullman's book The Amber Spyglass, you'll know what I mean when I say that deer are the tualapi of our world - beautiful, but incredibly destructive.

"They tore open the food stores, snarling and growling and tossing their great cruel beaks high as they swallowed the dried meat and all the preserved fruit and grain. Everything edible was gone in under a minute.... Then the great snow-white birds set about demolishing everything they could see...."

Dan