seeds...emergent and casualties

it's supposed to be quite warm here today and since i haven't watered since friday i drove out to campus to give the plants a drink...judging by the number of broken wheat stems and the amount of chaff on the ground ( as well as the half eaten seed heads ) i'd say the starlings have discovered the wheat...the wheat that is covered by bird tape is still intact so i am in hopes of some harvest next month...but there are no guarantees...proof ( as if any were needed ) that human intervention can only go so far in the biological world and then it is undone...i expected this...there has to be room for failure, if for no other reason than to learn...i will still be putting up bird tape in the wheat beds in my back yard...i need seed for the nitrogen fixing project and i don't want to purchase any more if it isn't absolutely necessary...the aim is to be as self-sufficient a project as possible...the intermediate wheat grass ( fourth photo ) is going to seed on the opposite side of the garden from the gamagrass...a bit earlier than last season but nothing extraordinary...the warm spring threw off the timing of the new growth but reproduction still seems on schedule...the bottom photo is of an asparagus spear that went unharvested for too long...so it will "fern" and feed the roots...the season is pretty much over anyway...the spears are decreasing in diameter and it's time to let them all fern...if it gets truly hot today i will likely be back out there tomorrow to water again ( at least the shallowly rooted plants and the maize i'm trying to germinate ) it's a holiday but the garden doesn't take time off does it?