A few days ago I pulled weeds for a bit, while the earth was still damp from the rain. When I needed a break, I sat in a porch chair to cool off with a glass of ice water.
As I watched, a rosy house finch landed on the top of a tall sowthistle I hadn’t gotten to yet. He began pulling seeds out of a seed puff. For every seed the bird ate he tore a few more off and cast them to the wind. I think he was looking right at me as he did it, too, as if to say, “So there!”
I don’t blame him for replenishing his food supply as quickly as I can yank it out of the ground. I just wish he hadn’t let me see him do it. I have enough trouble motivating myself to get out there and weed without a demonstration of how futile my efforts may be.
It’s all a balancing act, birds sowing weeds while I pull them. I’d better not let them get too far ahead of me. Slow down around here, and you’re done for.
*Delightful*
Also, thanks for the excuse.
Nature’s gardeners. And they do a really good job of that seed spreading.
Cas
So much of life, it seems, is trying to find the right balance… in gardening, in writing. But it isn’t often that we catch a glimpse of ourselves in the act of balancing. And that finch, I suspect, gave you not only more weeds… but a gift of sorts. A way to understand that our lives-no matter how hard we try to balance them-aren’t always in our control. Thanks for the reminder.
Very nice snapshot. The back of our yard, where it runs into the woods, I am allowing to go back to nature, which is to say moss and ferns. A better use anyway since it’s too rocky to really mow.
I used to be of the philosophy that tomatoes, once they became taller than the weeds, could be left, tomatoes and weeds both, to fend for themselves.
Then one summer morning I went out to the garden to find that the flourishing weeds were taking over the entire back yard, unchecked.
Moral of the story: Weeds may grow faster than you can keep up with them, but unchecked weeds will bury you.
I hate to tell you this, but that is not the only way these little stinkers plant more weeds in your garden. They eat the seeds and then they fly over unsuspecting gardens and poop them out…weedseeds complete with fertilizer to give them a really good start. Yikes, they’re clever, aren’t they?
Ah, yes…the attack of local wildlife on the garden. I know it well…