Birdbrained

Spent a couple of days gardening at the McPolack homestead. Turned out PolackPappy was not all that excited about anything beyond squash and tomatoes. He is not interested in watering. McMumsy stepped in and said she would "try" to water my beets, melons. parsnips and salsify so I dug a couple of small beds, planted the seeds, and hoped for the best. Ten minutes after I made the dirt bundt cake melon hill a critter hole appeared at the edge of it.

I was getting attacked by deerflies owing to there only being candy-ass bug spray (i.e., Deet-free) but then McMumsy saved the day with a long-sleeved shirt, a hat and, wonder of wonders, a bug netting thing to go over the hat. I tucked it into my dishcloth neckerchief. Which, by the way, was a piece of fabric that originally served some other purpose. So I was re-recycling. I should get a trophy.

As I gardened, a great-crested flycatcher was either building or protecting an already-built nest in a hole in the apple tree on the front lawn. Said flycatcher kept flying around and yelling, yelling, yelling. "Look, birdie," I told him? Her?, "I'm not the one who built a nest not two feet from a house. You're really going to need to get over yourself."

But it may be that the birdies are a little wackadoo in NH. Case in point: the whippoorwill is back this year and while normally he's somewhere across the street, McMumsy recently found him sitting on a fence post super-close to the house, and he was shrieking. In his defense, his call is described as "tiresome" on the magical Interwebs.