Today I sent out a pretty informal e-mail to a group of friends, inviting them to join Sharaun and her sister and brother-in-law and I for a weekend camping trip later this month. One of the responses I got was from a friend of ours who works for a major shipping company. Unfortunately, he relayed, the weekend I had chosen was the very weekend that the new, and presumably series-ending, Harry Potter book is released. Due to this, he had to work Saturday and would not be able to make it.
It struck me, then, how things effect other things. Because a British author wrote a wildly popular series of young-adult novels, demand for the final installment is unprecedented. This means that a friend of mine here in Northern California has to pull extra hours to manage the glut of book shipments to various outlets, presumably for both one-off private and bulk point-of-sale. Funny how that whole cause-and-effect things works, and how second, third, and even latter-order effects impact the daily routines of regular peoples I know. Kinda cool… global… or something.
We got together with some friends tonight for a leisurely walk over to the local ice cream parlour and some post-ice cream beers. At some point, Kerry, one of said friends, mentioned that she’d read the blog today (which is, as you read this, yesterday’s entry here) – and had a suggestion for my ongoing problem with birds in my garden. Backing up, I came home today to find two more tomatoes ruined – cherry this time, something they’ve previously not gone after. You can see them as the inline-image associated with this post. Anyway, Kerry suggested I offer the birds an alternative – an actual bird-food alternative. Now, I can immediately see this in two lights: 1) Having “real” bird food out for these beasts may sate them and ultimately keep them from my fruit, or, 2) Having “real” bird food out may invite even more hungry beasts into the yard – making me a regular avian all-you-can-eat buffet.
In the end, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot – as it seemed infinitely more implementable, not to mention humane, than my impulse-idea: A massively-charged “bird zapper” designed in the spirit of a “bug light.” Something that would find me coming home to piles of dead birds heaped around my planter box, all killed instantly the moment the dared flutter near my yummy tomatoes. I had also seriously planned to wall the entire thing via with some large-scale fine mesh box, but wasn’t going to be able to expend the time and effort until this weekend – which, at the current bird loss-rate, would cost me four to six more pieces of fruit. So, anyway, I’ll hang the seed-block thing early tomorrow morning… and see what happens. Wish me luck.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- talking to a ghost - 2019
- roll it over - 2006
- chin on chest - 2005
- my body has betrayed me - 2004
man vs avian saga to be continued…looking forward to the next installment. Birds don’t seem to mess with our tasty tomatoey treats…(knocking on wood)