This year the deer loved my cherry trees, and the cherry plums. They did leave the rose bushes alone since there is lavender planted between them. Wild blackberries were fair game, for both the deer and bear. But the roses only flushed once, due to the drought.
Ginger

We are in a serious drought as well, they really have been hungry critters in our yard, but I cannot begrudge them food or water. They bed down at night under my giant fig tree.

@sueinmn and @joyces et al

My word, Sue, you have a hungry bunch. Your drought sounds bad. Didn't realize you are having that kind of issue. We experience drought, but then we get good rains. We do seem, in Northern Florida at least, to have periods of about 10 years weather changes, either wet or dry seasons. Seems to be cyclical and fairly easily predicted. We go from flooding in our last of 3 streets, to about 3 -4 feet deep in center of street, into cars, the front doors, seeping into the walls and foundation in some years, and my patio flooding into my den with rain water flowing under my gate and fence onto the patio and getting well above ankle deep at times. We haven't had this kind of rainy season for years....I think maybe 10-12 years. But, this year has been quite wet. Haven't used my sprinklers for lawn much as usual.

Thus, the wet summer has produced my newly found mosquito allergic response. I had a tough challenge this year with at times 10-20 bites after outdoor visit to get feeders to clean. Never bothered me before this summer. But, I used 800mg CBD cream, Cortizone 10 cream, Benadryl cream, Benadryl capsules... One night, I took the last prednisone tablet as I was so desperate for relief. After using all that stuff, I finally dropped on the bed....my new mattress and new 4'' topper that make it sooooo comfy for me now....unconcious. Had to knock myself out to get relief!

It appears while you're roasting and dry, we're wet and soppy. We have a creek at the back of the condo property, running across the back of our property, eventually to the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. Jacksonville has the St. Johns River flowing northward from the center of the state to the ocean. It's a beautiful water source, quite wide and impressive. We have a nice port and 3 naval air stations. We have the Intracoastal Waterway that that runs along the Atlantic coastline through our area North up the east coast and south on down the state. Tropical of course with flooding and hurricanes and tropical storms.

Our property was built in the 70's on reclaimed land, filled swamp land. Beautiful old live oaks and pines and all kinds of trees lived on this property before we were built. Today, couldn't get permits to build at all 'cause of the altitude, we're just above sea level. I live in a swamp. Makes for a big adjustment when flying to CO or the Rockies. sea level....humid and makes for great complexions! bad hair days, tho.

Spent time cleaning and filling all my feeders this last week. Today, have new family members coming to my pit stops. New cardinals, chicadees...so tiny!, waxwing, house finch, woodpeckers, and darn if I don't have a couple of smaller squirrels, the little cute rats! They today opened the large...huge cage feeders for woodpecker seed cakes and suet. They opened it when I put a new, big and expensive cake in there! I just looked out and it's almost gone from the ground. I'm going to put a couple of ties on it next time.

Hope all are well and safe. Enjoy your beautiful, lovely animals, woodchucks, deer and elk and bears and owls and eagles and ducks and all the precious gifts we see from our windows. It is a gift to get your pictures, too.
Blessings to all. elizabeth