Game On!

I couldn't believe it! "oh, no! You didn't just go there," I almost screamed as I looked out my kitchen window while rinsing my empty morning coffee cup.

A second later, and now I did scream, throwing the sopping sponge in the sink, "Oh, it is so on! Hell no, you didn't just go there!"as I ran toward the door, grabbed the key, unlocked the safety screen and ran outside to stop the offenders from doing any more damage to my tomatoes. I finally had the smoking gun, flat-out busted the culprits - mystery and paranoia laid, at last, to rest.

For a few weeks now, when my tomatoes ripened, I'd go out to harvest them for a nice salad, sandwich or guidsado, or whatever, only to find that the beautiful, perfectly ripened tomato I saw from my kitchen window, was entirely demolished and picked over on the opposite side.

For a while I suspected my neighbors. Since I'd fallen out of favor with some of them for insisting that more care be taken with their pets on my portion of the shared yard; I suspected retribution was at hand; going to the heart of me by attacking my tomatoes - when my back was turned!

I decided to work on the virtue of patience and pay more attention. I watched as I wrote at the dining room window, started taking a few extra breaks from my desk, whether writing or working, to check on the tomatoes, or while enjoying my coffee - just checking for any clues or signs of the offenders. Nothing.

All through the green phase, nothing. Perfectly content little verdent tomatoes - untouched. When I saw that they were ripe, good enough to bring in, I'd leave them a little bit longer to taste the true meaning of 'vine ripened' tomatoes. That's when I'd discover the horror! It was in that moments on the vine - just a moment too long, when the tragedy strikes.

This morning, I'm washing my coffee cup and look outside and notice the content birds who've come down in search for seeds. There's this new bird - larger than a sparrow and more solid - resting on my tomato plant. He looks like a Chickadee and is always off somewhere in the yard by himself, often on the patio chair near my tomato plant. He comes nearly every morning lately "aaaah, how sweet, he's using my plant as reprieve," I thought, happy that I've been able to create a bit of a refuge of sorts for the birds. I'm thinking all this just a second before he took a hearty peck into the tomato.

Then a mockingbird joined in! Ahrghhhh... the damn door is jammed again. Normally the jiggling of the door scares away the birds feeding on the seeds, not these two. They were so into my tomato that they didn't care how close I might be to actually opening the damn thing! Maybe they knew it would take me long enough for them to get a couple of good chunks out. Kind of like a criminal who knows just how long he can hang around the scene of a crime before the cops arrive.

I finally open it up and shoo them away. My tomato was nearly ruined. Bastards! How can you do this. After I've been so good to you (until the pigeons). I'd been holding back on everyday feedings because of the pigeon uprising -numbers were increasing from 2 to 5 on some days...that's a few short of a revolution when it comes to pigeons - and my small yard - and some days I'd forget to put it out - plus, I mixed in seed for finches. The majority seems to be poo pooing this mix, so I figured, stupidly, when you're hungry enough, 'you'll eat the mixture and be you'll be happy to get it. The birds, they had other ideas.

Too proud, and too determined, to let my tomatoes get ransacked by these little invaders, I harvest them anyway. I cut away the pecked side - they clearly had been at it for a while - and enjoyed them chopped, folded into browned onions and scrambled eggs - a simple and especially pleasing breakfast.

My birds have good taste. Now I now what I'm up against and what I have to do to protect my right to eat what plant and grow. I'll get back on my schedule of feeding the birds their seeds - pigeons be damned - and harvest a little earlier than I had been. Birds, I've found out, are not color blind. They knew when my tomatoes where at their reddest, at their most ripened. They're no fools, and they have impeccable taste. I feel kinda proud of that, in a geeky sort of way.