to scare a mockingbird...

The other day I had two raspberries and a strawberry in my garden that were all about a day or two off being ripe.
I left in the morning, came home in the evening, went out to water the plants and... my berries were gone.
DAMNED BIRDS.
So today, on my day off, I decided to do something about it. After spraying my raspberries with some pesticides for the little moths I'm convinced are evil, they seem to be doing a little better. There are about 3 or 4 berries left to ripen on the big plant. The little one has had a tough time of it and didn't get any berries, but since their packaging said they wouldn't get anything for a year or 2, I'm amazed I had any berries at all. GO BIG PLANT! Anyhoo.

I googled what to do about birds. Some sort of silver tape seemed to be effective. Or hanging CDs. I didn't want to buy any silver tape, I already had silver -stuff-.... So I made my own Bird-Repellent System*

In a lot of ways it reminds me, weirdly, of Camelot. Flags fluttering in the breeze, castle-shaped pot... and.. that's about all, really. Mostly it's about the flags.

*Not guaranteed to survive wind, rain, or weather.**
**Also not guaranteed to repel birds.

Well, that looked pretty good, I thought.
Meanwhile Reya was scaling the security screen door and meowing woefully from inside. Then I thought: Well, of course! I have a secondary bird-repelling mechanism!

This photo makes me super happy, that's why it's extra large. 

What better way to scare away birds than with your very own Bird Eater!?* (©my father, 1986-2011)(I'm only slightly kidding about that last part. That's what he actually calls cats. I think a part of him died inside when I told him we'd adopted a kitten.) 

*Not guaranteed to withstand rain, wind, cold, or weather.**

**Also not guaranteed to stay put for more than two seconds.

 Look! She's looking for birds already! She's a natural. (My Dad would be so upset if he read this. Though, if I told him the birds eating my fruit were Indian Myna birds, he'd be in a bit of a dilemma. Allow cat to eat feral birds? Then cats win. Allow feral birds to eat home grown fruit? Then birds win! Either way he would loose.). She may also be just watching the foil flag fluttering in the wind.

I decided to see how she'd go with the rest of the garden. Here she is with a dog leash fashioned into a harness that compelled her to roll about in the dirt and not really do very much. Or, she may just like rolling about in the dirt. Her 'cat tendencies' are so minimal that I wouldn't really put it past her to just enjoy getting dirt in her fur. Look at her though, she's getting some very pretty colour in her fur.

When you buy your own Bird-Eater©, your product also doubles as a handy weed-remover. Seen here, the Kitten100 efficiently and effectively chomps weeds right out of the garden bed. Being close to the ground (particularly when rolling about due to leash restrictions), the Kitten100 will munch on anything in sight*.

*This may include your actual plants and vegetables.

In other, unrelated news... My tomatoes are a mess.

 

Can you tell what's going on here? Because I certainly can't. Basically, that's about 6 tomato plants that Nic lovingly grew from a seed, then handed over to me once they needed planting. (There you go honey, I'm giving you credit!) Um... since it's been a bit windy and rainy, they've gone mental and are just a general clump of tomatoes. Somewhere in there are individual plants and about 12 stakes. The stakes aren't tall enough, obviously. Some of the plants are so tall that I can't actually reach the top of them any more. I'd stake them again but I don't think it's going to help. That being said though, there are many, many green tomatoes...

And some red ones too! We ate our first ones the other day.
They tasted like tomatoes.