Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain

Every spring the grape growers try to thwart the hungry deer who love to nibble on fresh young grape vine shoots. They electrify several fences and they string up long lengths of red and white tape along woods' edge (the tape flutters in the breeze). This year we are seeing scarecrows.

Callie wasn't scared, but she was curious.

Maybe they should be called scaredeer. In French, they're epouvantails. There are two of them; one on each end of a particular parcel. It's the parcel of younger vines that M. Denis the elder planted about five years ago and takes care of himself. I don't know if he's on to something or if he's just on something. Time will tell.

8 comments:

  1. If you think maybe he's "on something" check out what else he may be growing!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We've got a gas gun and a scarecrow set up in the crop on the hill across from us (although I assume they are for pigeons rather than deer, as I think it has just been sown with maize).

    ReplyDelete
  3. You'll never be a nuthin' your head all full of stuffin' to me.

    If it makes you feel better, I was scared a little seeing this pic :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. WCS - Doesn't "epouvantable" mean terrible? So scarecrows are "terribles" if that transaltes?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wonder if that would work with my strawberry patch. Some critter picks them and leaves the unripe bits scattered on the ground.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Epouvanter means to scare, to frighten, to terrify. There's no crow in the French word for scarecrow -- it just means something that frightens whatever animal you want to scare off.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Perhaps if the "scarecrow" moves in the wind, the deer will think it's a person and leave the vineyard.

    ReplyDelete
  8. leon, excellent idea!

    susan, that must be what one of our neighbors has... we hear the regular "bangs" all summer long.

    diogenes, see Ken's answer below. Both words come from the same root.

    chris, worth a try!

    starman, that sounds about right.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think!