Friend of the Swallows

It’s that time of year again, time to knock back the weeds. I’m a month later this year than last, and a week later than 2024, but the thistles haven’t gone to seed yet. Wet spring and cool early summer seem to have held everything down a bit.

So there I was before lunch, driving the tractor back and forth, knocking down thistles and burdock and surrounded by a flock of swallows swooping all around me, eating all the insects I kicked into the air. Sitting on the telephone line across the road were a couple dozen swallows, looking like the second seating at the barnyard buffet.

I better get back to work. My customers need me. The birds’ menu for this afternoon: grasshoppers, mosquitoes, flies, beetles, and oodles of unnamed but delicious bugs! As for me, I’m gorging on mulberries whenever I drive under a mulberry tree.

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