A bird strike obliterated one of the 7 by 9 panes of glass in the greenhouse front door.

It must have been a pretty good-sized bird to have the mass necessary to make the shape and type of hole evidenced, and certainly it was surprised in full flight. It could be one of those catbirds, who, living up to their name in criminal quarters, love to sneak in the open sides of the greenhouse and steal their lunch or dinner by pecking their beaks directly into the largest, ripest tomato they can find, usually a German striped tomato, or a beautiful pink Brandywine beefsteak heirloom just right for the picking, which they do, the picking, in their own peckish way, leaving perfect little beak-sized holes drilled directly into the sides of the tomatoes. They sometimes peck right alongside their last strike, making one continuous hole the size of a quarter before they move on to the next nice ripe juicy one, either tired of their awkward stance on the side of a tomato plant or seeking a new flavor of the month.

Catbirds leave us right about now for points south, way south, like Mexico, and so maybe it was their goodbye feast. They live here in the yard and build their stick nests in the thick red dogwood bushes proliferating along the sweet brook relieving Beamer Swamp, or they build them in the even thicker multifloras. While not flycatchers, catbirds are proficient aerial feeders and I have observed them sitting on the fenceposts surrounding the beehives and picking off bee after bee right out of the air. They will also swoop down onto the grass in front of the hive opening and forage there for weaker bees, or for the male drones banished from the hives by the worker females. Catbird foraging is nutritious and bountiful in our yard. I’ll take that as a compliment.

Whatever hit the windowpane did not die, as I found no feathers and no carcass, and I can barely even find any broken glass on the ground outside the door. The strike was from the inside and the strange thing is both sides of the greenhouse were rolled up and open to the wind. It’s like the whole greenhouse was open except the front door so let’s fly there. At least the damage is within the purview of my limited construction talents. I can fix it before the cold nights roll in.

With the shade cloth on, the temperature in the greenhouse stays below ninety degrees and that’s a relief for everything inside. One row of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes grew so tall they took the trellis down onto the Valencia yellow low acid tomato row, but they are both happy and very productive and have become like a jungle.

The early green beans (we don’t call them string beans anymore because plant husbandry has removed the string) with good irrigation are still producing a heavy harvest of fresh beans every couple days.

My favorites are peppers. We were hurt by the Great Pepper Scandal of 2023 in which millions and millions of commercially produced pepper seeds were mislabeled on the national level, and what you wanted to plant and what it said on the package is not what was in the package. We wanted yellow Hungarian wax peppers, rather hot, and what we make our pickled hot peppers out of; instead, what we got were yellow banana peppers, a nice pepper in their own right, but without heat. Peppergate. Check it out. Pepper seeds in your hand are nearly indistinguishable one from the other and they take a long time to germinate and grow, and the grower is well into the season before the truth is known.

The cucumbers have about had it. I am thinking of taking the vines down. Thinking of what I can plant now to go into the fall. It’s been a lot of fun and the tomatoes are still going strong. Stop out at the stand and pick up a few!