It rained last night, and as soon as morning rolled around, out came the choppers. Whapwhapwhapwhapwhap, buzzing over my house, off to blow-dry the cherries in the orchard down the street. I kid you not. Rain means wet cherries; wet cherries split; and split cherries rot very fast. So rain means a ruined crop for cherry orchardists, or it used to, until some smart cookie came up with the helicopter idea.
And when the helicopter was gone, the music started up. No, it's not meant to make the cherries happy- you know, how some people talk to their house plants to make them grow better? Nope, not like that. (And it wouldn't work anyways, because, weren't we taught in no uncertain terms back in the '80's that crops that have rock music played to them wither and die, unlike the classical- or christian-music-listening turnips, thereby proving conclusively that rock music is of the devil? Or something.) And it's not even meant to make the itinerant fruit pickers happy while they pluck those little parcels of black-red juicy goodness off the trees. No, this music is, literally, for the birds. Apparently, so the orchardist tells me, the ravenous beasts have got so used to the orchard cannons that the whizzzz-bang doesn't scare them off any more. But the local radio station seems to still do the trick. The birdies probably just don't like the DJ's taste in music- can't say I blame them, personally. But I have much greater tolerance for the music, now that I know it means I get more cherries to munch, without peck holes courtesy of that feathered thief up there.
Life, the universe, and high-tech cherries. It's all good.
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