You like that title? How about that smell? It's exactly what I smelled like - actually reeked like - the other day after valiantly trying to defend my new squash plants from the four heathens who have taken over my yard:

I bought this magic elixir that promised to not only scoot the deer out of my yard but to keep the bunny rabbits at bay as well. After a quick spray of the goop, I about barfed not realizing how terrible it would smell. As I squirted, gagged, and sprayed some more, I attempted to stand up wind in an attempt to avoid smelling like a an old school pizza joint's urinal.

I thought I had been successful with dodging the funk until I walked into my house and began to scream at my cats for releasing their bodily juices on my carpet. As I reached down to check behind the couch for a suspicious yellow puddle, I caught wind of my sweater and realized I was actually the odoriferous offender. It was so bad that I had to strip down to my skivvies and start a load of laundry right then and there. It took quite a bit longer to actually get the funk out of my hair, which I had to keep back in a ponytail so that it wasn't a constant friendly reminder of my garden.

Barf. I hope I at least get a couple of zucchini out of all of this.

Hubby and I did a frantic gardening session last weekend, firing up the rototiller and weeding several planter beds. We rushed to get our plants in after getting a super late start due to the rats with wings thwarting my initial tries at planting seeds and raising a garden from scratch. Thankfully, I was able to find some healthy plants from Charlie's Blossoms (thanks to Kristabel - great meeting you!).

And yes Zeke, I see you. Quit molesting the fresh dirt in my yard:

During our process of gardening, I received a lot of advice as to how to keep the heathens out of our garden. Someone suggested that I go to a barber and ask for his leftover hair clippings. Evidently the deer are not so keen with the smell of old man hair but in actuality, neither am I. Even if I would have gotten the hair, I know for sure it would have sat in my garage forever - like Cousin It in a bag. I probably would have avoided using my garage all together. I know I thwarted a catastrophe by not picking up that fur.

Another suggestion we received was to put a hot wire (electric fence) around the garden. The only problem is with three curious kiddos and three rambunctious puppy dogs, someone was sure to get hurt. Plus, I could only imagine my boys taking a test run at putting a variety of things on the fence to see what would happen. I speak from experience and can probably name about 20 different things that conduct electricity rather well. Juicy plums, for example, will give you an especially nice, exquisite zap. I can still remember the muscles seizing in my right arm and the weird feeling I had the rest of the day, after my brother and I conducted our own series of electrical tests.

The last idea someone mentioned was to pee around the area of our garden. I thought this would be the most organic of our choices and after feeding Hubby several Budweiser beers throughout the day, I figured he may be able to do one, if not two laps around the entire garden, perhaps even stopping to write his name for good measure. But, like the hair, I knew I would never be able to till that soil again, knowing it had been defiled by a willing urinator. Even though I bypassed the liquid gold idea, I did keep feeding him hops and barley nourishment because I quickly found that a tipsy Hubby was more motivated to make my planter box as big as I wanted it rather than the dismal size he had initially mentioned. I am a master manipulator - bwahahahaha!

Looking back now, I'm wondering if I should have just went the hair, hot wire, or urine route since the bottled up liquid Hell I bought seems to be as disgusting (and way more expensive) than the rest. Do you have any suggestions? How do you keep the deer out of your garden?