DRAT THAT MOCKINGBIRD
It is too hot to pull weeds and all that manual labor stuff in my flower beds. But I do want to water them so they will have a fighting chance to make it through the summer. The faucet is right by the infamous mockingbird nest. I've been swooped several times this week, and last night he bonged me again in the head. This morning he swooped me while trying to stay away from him on the other side of the yard.
Here he is waiting ...watching...... daring me to take one more step. (I'M HAVING TROUBLE UPLOADING THESE IMAGES)
I have to water the flowers and Sparky has to do his thing. This is my solution.
I don't know which is more ridiculous. Hiding from a bird under an umbrella or posing for your picture under one on a busy street!
**EDIT** It didn't work. I just went out to turn the water off. He got under the umbrella and flogged my arm, then two of them followed me under the carport! Maybe they don't like smiley faces on umbrellas.
Well, my last post about the mockingbird was July 3. On July 4th I thought it was too good to be true, but I did not see the mockingbird. Not that I was rushing out there to check the nest either since all that I had gone through the day before. But, YES!, they were gone. This week I was able to prune back the vine that was hiding the nest. I was able to water my flowers. Yaaaaay.
The summer produce is starting to come in. My poor little backyard tomato patch this year is not doing well at all. The plants are dying, but I do have enough tomatoes to enjoy each day until the plants completely die. Except....something has been eating my tomatoes! And of course it is getting the better ones before I can get to them.
Well, I caught the culprit in the act! It was sitting up in the Mulberry tree with one of its' younguns!
DRAT! THAT MOCKINGBIRD!
posted by BOBO @ 5:25 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
After six years of raising your (our) taxes, I finally had time to get back to my long-neglected garden. Privet hedge had invaded, raised beds disintegrated, anonymous vines and minor sequoias had sprouted. Since I loath chemical eradications, it meant long days of digging and pulling.
I've reclaimed only 1/4 of the garden, working to the edge of sunstroke and the limits of my naproxen. One half on the former garden is under black plastic, to solarize the weeds (I put newspaper over the sharpest woody stumps to prevent punctures).
I got a pickup truck load of compost from the LR dump ($13) and replenished the reclaimed parts. I resited my recycled-tire dripper hoses to that section. I covered those with newspaper held down by plastic bottles of water. (I'll be torn if LR ever gets a good plastics recycling program going, because I use those 2-liter bottles for cloches, deep irrigation, collars, starter pots and frost prevention, as well.)
All was going fine until the rabbits, squirrels and birds discovered that the buffet line was back into operation. I'm to the point of putting 100'x100' mesh over my garden next year. My apple, peach, and fig trees have suffered the same pecker fate.
I know they gotta eat, but it is discouraging to see vines denuded and fruits pecked (why can't they just finish what they started instead of taking a bite out of every fruit?). Ah, back to the blissful life of a gardener. It's hard to figure which is harder to deal with - a bunch of fur or feather rodents ... or lobbyists.
Jim Lendall
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