Under the Wire

Tree Swallow, male
Tachycineta bicolor

Our vegetable garden sits a distance from the house—adjacent to the old barn and bordered by the pasture, now grown high in field grasses. Two nest boxes mark the path, across the hill and into the woods.

Each year the strategy is the same.
Plant only what we’re able to defend. For as much as we look forward to the freshness a home garden can provide, so, too, do the others—raccoons, rabbits, deer,…eager to quickly empty it of its tender contents, courteously provided as a buffet within the sanctuary of our yard--
the snarling gardener discovering little more than its stubby remains on a steamy summer morning.


Two fine wires connected to a pulsing electric charge wrap the fertile, roto-tilled earth, dark with years’ turnings of manure, leaves and ash, several inches above its surface. And, though barely seen, its rhythmic pulse warns of its gentle reminder, “All else here is yours, save the tilled ground.”




From a few feet away, a male Tree Swallow stands—the sentinel above his family’s home, their nest in a box set out for Bluebirds—though, each year left to swallows, instead. Our closeness and regular visits never a bother, it would seem. Our ways, tolerated well, perhaps enjoyed—long looks would make it seem so.

One
of eight baby woodchucks

Surveyors of this expanse beyond our watch.
Wiser than we who stretch this fine wire, and wonder who passes unseen—
those yet small enough to pass—
under the wire.

I see you.

Ready for breakfast.

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