One step I haven't taken in the yard is to protect my younger plants - especially the shrub that I planted in late October - from hungry deer. The shrub is supposed to be quite deer-resistant, so I'm expecting that now that's it's lost its leaves for the winter, it will be unappetizing to the deer. But all around, I see plenty of people who have protected young trees and other plants from the hungry ungulates. Come springtime, when I look to add more plants, shrubs, and trees to the yard, I may have to take that step. I'll certainly look into it over the winter. The photos in this post, by the way, were taken on the Cornell University campus near the man-made Beebe Lake, which is along Fall Creek several miles downstream from my house.
On a deer-related note, I recently saw a road-kill deer about a mile down the road from my house, not far outside of the village limits. I haven't seen the three deer who frequent my yard lately, but I hope it wasn't one of them. The county has a deer overpopulation problem, it's true, but I haven't seen more than this family of three right in Freeville.
The Cornell campus and vicinity has a much larger deer problem. I heard a few years ago that the deer population on campus was about 80, and I doubt that it's changed much since then. The village of Cayuga Heights, which adjoins Cornell to the north, has recently decided to take action by sterilizing deer caught in its limits.
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