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Sunday, Sept. 01, 2002 - 8:08 p.m. This morning, while reading the Home section of the local paper, I realized that it was time to get a few last crops planted in the vegetable garden. It suddenly dawned on me that today was the first of September / the day I�ll always remember/ �cause that was the day that my daddy died /. No, wait, that was the third of September, and it wasn�t my dad. He is still alive and doing fine. That poppa was a rolling stone, if my memory serves me right. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah�. If I wanted to have any fall lettuce, I needed to get it in the ground pronto. I also threw in a few short-time green bean seeds, with the hope that we don�t have another early frost. Most years I can get to late October before a killer, so there is still time. As I approached the garden, I noticed what I thought was a sparrow, sitting on my grape vines. Just what I feared: the birds had finally found a way to get under the netting I strung to protect the grapes, just days before the crop was ready for harvest. But the closer I got to the vines it became apparent that I was wrong. Maybe it was the constant chatter coming from the trees above me. Then, as I was less than 10 feet from the vines, a single male cardinal dove from the Evil Black Walnut Tree From Hell and flew within a few feet of my head, returning to the branch he came from. Odd behavior, I must say. Since the bird was still on the grape vine, I slowly approached it, fearing it was ensnared in the netting. It wasn�t stuck. I wasn�t a sparrow, either. It was a baby cardinal. It looked far to young to be out of the nest, but it had to have flown to the vines from its nest (located in a bird�s nest gourd I hung in a tree 20 feet away). It must have been out on its first flight, and had landed at that spot, afraid to fly further. By this point, I was less than 5 feet away from the hatchling, and I didn�t want to scare it (or anger it�s parents) anymore than I already had. I went quietly back inside our house, and returned with the digital camera to take the following shots for your viewing pleasure�.. Here is the youngun�, perched on the vines:
Hears the dad, looking down on me quite menacingly:
And here is mom:
Now, you�re probably thinking, Roadiepig, isn�t it too late in the year for birds to be having their babies?� right? Yeah, I would have thought the same thing a few years back. But, for some reason the cardinals up here always seem to be the last birds to sire their young every summer. Maybe it�s because they are not migratory, so the need to grow to full-sized adults by late fall isn�t that important to the species. Maybe they have more than one hatch of young every summer. I don�t know for sure, but for the past three years we have had a pair raise their young in our backyard into the fall. It might be the same pair. I just clean the gourd out every winter, removing all the small twigs that the cardinals use for a nest. So far this summer we have had (that we could see) a nest of mourning doves, two sparrow nests (in the ivy vines on the back of our house), and now these cardinals. A few years back we had a pair of screech owls use our back yard to raise their young. One morning, a neighbor called me over to tell me that she had watched the babies, under their mothers watchful eyes, rip some other bird's babies out of a nest (in another gourd I had hung) in the tree. She said it was pretty gruesome, but I reminded her that it was just nature in full display for her to see. I had to clean up the mess, though. That wasn�t too cool�. Lease and I drove to the closest outlet mall to our town of Mohall today. It was a thirty minute drive, and worth the trip. She picked up some great buys on clothing (sweaters, unmentionables and such), I found several rude t-shirts for the boy, and we bought some new cookie sheets and kitchen utensils at bargain prices. All that was good, but I ended up scoring the best bargain. I have needed to replace my old work blue jeans for a while now. After painting the house last week, I took the pair I wore both days and threw them in the garbage. That reduced me to only one pair of regular work jeans. So either I had to take a pair of my �good jeans� and make them work jeans, or I had to buy some new cheap jeans for the workplace instead. The outlet mall had just filled one of its anchor stores with a new V.F. outlet. It just opened last month. Since I have bought Lee� and Wrangler� jeans from one of these store down south in the past, I was glad they decided to open a store closer to home. Today�s haul? Four pair of what the label �irregular� Wrangler� relaxed fit (for a relaxed body) jeans for only $10 a pair! I looked these jeans up and down, and I couldn�t find what they thought was wrong with them. On several other pairs on the rack, it was obvious: a few tiny holes here, a seam off there, and some with die or fabric problems. But the pairs I bought had nothing like that to be seen. Like I said, these will be WORK JEANS, so it doesn�t matter to me if they were deemed unworthy of full price status. I just picked up two years worth of new work jeans for $40! You can�t beat that with a stick. I also bought a pair of full- priced Lees� for $18 (not bad), and three different Chicago Bears t-shirts for $10 each. Two hooded zipper-front sweatjackets (one for Codeman and one for me) at $12 each rounded out my purchase. Lease didn�t find anything she wanted there, but she didn�t mind. She is always getting on me for not buying myself new clothing. She can�t say that after today, I guess. I am stocked up with new clothes to last me a good long time����
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