I’ve been thinking my tomato plants were looking a little spindly.
And I was dipping my toe into the hard fact that my tomato plants looked healthier in our old shotgun house whose side yard received exactly three hours of full sun per day without-fancy-brand-new-raised beds-that-the-husband-would-not-at-all-ever-question-why-we-built-just-to-grow-spindly-tomato-plants.
*sigh*
Then I walked in on the robber:
{I typed “angry blackbird” into the google image search, not even thinking…so let’s just pretend that I’m “with it” and realized this would clearly be an Angry Birds reference.}
A couple days ago I peered out the window of my husband’s home office JUST IN TIME, THANKS BE TO THE LORD to see a blackbird perched on my tomato cage. It hung out there for a second, and then proceeded to pluck some leaves off of the plant.
Yes, the plant I grew from seed.
I almost can’t talk about it.
Lo, it did not eat them. That would have been fulfilling some circle of life mantra I likely possess and I would have sung Hakuna Matata and moved on with my day. But no. It did not consume. It plucked them off and dropped them at the bottom of the cage.
{Shakes head.}
I hopped on my computer and Amazoned some bird netting pronto, and then I went to the Google and typed “birds plucking leaves off tomato plants.” And guess what I found:
Yep, that’s him. {Or her.}
They are called red-winged blackbirds, and according to the lovely support forum I found, they do enjoy plucking the leaves off small tomato plants “until they get used to them being there.”
{!!!}
I don’t think there is room for another creature in my life who needs to be eased into new ideas. I’m all full up getting the ones I have to try some fresh carrots or please don’t unroll the entire roll of toilet paper just to get what you need.
So the bird netting is on the way. And I might need to be eased into the idea that this whole garden could wind up in a tent within two months time.
