CROW GETS THE MESSAGE

This morning while I was removing the last of the radishes to make room for the sprouting beans (initially hidden by the radish leaves from the depredations of Dr. Crow, who loves to stroll down the rows and bite off the fresh bean sprouts, snip, snip, snip...), I heard a harrumphy ruckus from up above, looked up, and there on the telephone wire only a couple of meters away as the crow flies sat Dr. Crow, pretending to look every elsewhere while carefully eyeing the delicate procedure by which I was so considerately readying his bean sprout lunch.

Happening to have a handful of radishes with the leaves still on, the bunch by coincidence being approximately the size of a very fat crow's neck, I held it up and said, "Yo, Crow: you see this? This is your neck if you come near these bean sprouts, kapish?" And with that I twisted the leaves slowly but firmly until with a richly ripping crunch they came off in my hand and I held up the bright red crow's head separated from its body for him to see, but it was too much for his delicate sensibilities. With a strangled squawk as though from too tight a collar he was gone, the wire bouncing with the haste of his departure. In gardening, threats are sometimes better than compost.