I Keep My Feathers Numbered

I love holiday weekends. Getting that extra day off doesn’t seem like it would be that big a deal but everyone looks forward to it. No sleeping in on Monday, tho. The Tahoe team gets their bikes picked up at the LLS office I think at 7:30 or 8 in the morning. The bikes will be wrapped in a blanket and loaded on to a semi. Bikes from multiple chapters will be on the same truck as it makes its way to Lake Tahoe for next weekend’s ride.

I’ve noticed that the seats on the right hand side of the bus (when sitting down) have a couple more inches of leg room, I believe because there is one less row of seats – to accommodate for wheelchairs. Don’t tell anyone else who rides my bus that, or they’ll sit their first. And I’ll be sad.

So we have an evergreen tree out our front door that stands about 10-12 feet tall. For the last couple of years a robin has built her nest in that tree – about 4 feet off the ground. Typically the girls leave the birds alone or are oblivious to the fact that they’re even there… until the last week or so.

We usually let the girls out the front door, they’ll sniff around the tree, we’ll tell them “no”, they’ll go away and do their business, no problems. Well, apparently yesterday while the girls were a few feet away from the tree the mother bird decides she’s going to fly out of the tree. The two baby birds decide to follow her (the first time we’ve seen them fly) and Gracie grabs it in mid flight.

I was at work so Julie was by herself, and she doesn’t do so well in these situations – her dog standing there with a live bird in its mouth. Julie gets Gracie to drop the bird, at which point the mother and father are quite upset and other robins join in the ruckus. Before she knows it, a dead bird is on the ground, angry birds or flying overhead and dive-bombing the dogs, and Julie is frantically trying to get them into the house. She calls me at work and notifies me that there is a bird killer in the family and a dead bird waiting for me when I get home. Wonderful.

Although, I do get a chuckle picturing Gracie with feathers flying out of her mouth, like in the cartoons. But unlike in the cartoons, the bird didn’t get out alive this time. “Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered, for just such an emergency.” – Foghorn Leghorn

Lyric of the Day: “Everyone’s a Captain Kirk” – “99 Red Balloons”, Nena