Posts Tagged With: nature

If you did not read the post from yesterday about Perry the Pigeon you might want to do that first, to give you the background on the following story.  Or not.

I am sad to report that Perry the Pigeon has Perished.  My much hoped for expungement of my dismal animal rescue record was not to be.  When I returned home this morning from taking the kids to D&B to pick up some cracked corn for Perry and then dropping said wee ones off at preschool, this is what I found. I don’t know if he succumbed to his injuries by the dogs and cats yesterday (likely) or the rigors of his photo shoot in the hands of Handsome Hubby this morning, but he was dead.

Handsome Hubby suggested that I put Perry in a ziploc bag and freeze him to save him for training Winston the Maniac Birddog Puppy a little later in the spring, but I knew that wouldn’t fly with the kids (har har). When I picked them up from preschool a couple of hours later, the first question they asked was of course “How’s Perry?!”  I told them the truth, that Perry had passed away. Annabelle is my stoic one.  She shrugged and said “That’s OK Mom.  Pigeons are really dirty birds anyway and they poop all over everything.”  Zachary was very quiet.  I knew this meant trouble.

You see, Zach had gone into such a state of despair after the death of Bluey, the Blue Betta fish (we’re pretty clever with names around here) that I had to make an emergency run to PetCo that same afternoon to purchase a new, red, Betta fish.  That the kids named….wait for it…..Reddy.

Anyway, Zach was pretty calm all the way home until he walked in the door and looked in the box.  Then the hysterics began.  He was so upset that I almost started crying, and I believe that I made it pretty clear how I feel about pigeons in the original Perry story.  Zach wailed.  His little face turned red and big fat tears rolled down his cheeks.  He asked over and over again if I thought that Perry was *really* dead and if I thought he might come back to life.  He was beyond consolation.

I finally calmed him down a little bit by suggesting that he could choose one of his old baby blankets to bury Perry in. He chose a nice little blue and white cotton blanket (I would like to say right now that if the blanket that appears in the following photo is one you gave Zach as a baby gift….I’m sorry).  We put the bird down on the blanket and Annabelle came up with the idea of sprinkling a little of the cracked corn on the blanket so he would have something to eat on the way to heaven.  Nice touch, I thought.

Then we wrapped Perry up in a nice tidy little package that dripped small pieces of cracked corn all over the hardwood floor.

Zach was still too upset to even consider touching the bundle, but Annabelle happily picked it up and carried it outside.

We had chosen a nice little spot in the orchard outside our yard where (most importantly for mommy, the digger) the dirt was nice and soft.  I dug the hole, every strike of the shovel punctuated by the wailing of my three year old son.  When I thought I was finished, he made me dig it deeper.  Twice.

Finally we were ready.  I would like to say that Annabelle gently placed the poor deceased bird in the hole, but she actually just tossed him in.

I straightened the blanket before I took the photo.

Then we put the dirt on top and put some rocks to cover it so the cats and dogs wouldn’t try to dig it up.  Annabelle helped. Zach just watched and cried.

When it was all said and done, Zach stood for several minutes just looking at the rocks.  And crying.  I felt so bad I almost offered to take him to get a hamster at PetCo.  He really wants a hamster.  I don’t.

Then we went in the house.  Zach was still sniffling.  Annabelle is ever the helper in little brother management.  She said “You know Zach, it’s not that bad that Perry died.  Pigeons are very dirty birds and they poop all over the horses in the barn, and they even poop on your head.”

Zach thought long and hard about this.  Then he stopped crying, made a big face, and said “EEWWWWWWWW!!!  That is so gross.  I HATE pigeons!” and he hasn’t mentioned Perry since.

I am SO glad I didn’t offer up the hamster.

I would like to say in my defense that I thought it was a dove.  You know, cooing, chocolates……mate for life, that sort of thing.

The kids were outside playing happily, Batman was wearing the cowboy costume that he checked out from school (note in the second picture that he has added his sister’s pink spurs to the ensemble).

I was in the house having a nice glass of pinot grigio (OK, who am I kidding.  It was the regular cheap swill I always drink).

Suddenly the back sliding glass door flew open in a dramatic fashion and Horsecrazy rushed in.  “Mom! Toby caught a bird!”  Now that WAS news.  Toby is our old man dog, almost thirteen, pretty much completely deaf and he can’t see that great either.  I rushed to the yard to see just what type of feathered creature was so frail that it could be caught by such a feeble old dog. Toby was settling in to his favorite spot on the yard with a small gray creature in his mouth.  It was the exact same spot he settles into when Handsome Husband throws him a raw beef bone or the kids throw one of the puppy’s chewies outside.  You get the picture.

I yelled at Toby to put the bird down, but as I said, he can’t hear anyway, and then I rushed to the house to get a pair of gloves. I removed the bird from his mouth and looked it over.  It was pretty much limp with a few small feathers sticking out in various places on it’s little body.  I was pretty sure a wing was broken. It seemed comatose, and death was obviously certain. What to do…..my two wee children were looking at me expectantly, like I could fix all this. Huh.

Inspiration flashed, and I said “Let’s just take the bird out and put it on the haystack!” in my happy voice.  “Then its friends will come and get it.”  The kids looked at me dubiously, but after I secured Toby on a chain (he was none too happy with me) they trekked out with me to the shed, where I placed the surely soon-to-be dead bird on the second bale off the ground.  The kids insisted on sitting there with it, so after a few token attempts to get them to come in the house I returned to my waiting glass of Pinot.

I forgot about the cats.

We have three barn/pet cats who are avid hunters.  Three minutes later a hysterical Horsecrazy came running into the house.  “MOM THE CATS ARE GOING TO GET THE BIRD!!!” We rushed outside to find Batman in a similar state of panic, jumping up and down in consternation as three hungry barn cats fished for the bird, who had managed to dive into a crack between the bales. I guess it wasn’t quite so dead as I thought it was.

Now, anyone who has known me for a long time knows I have a long history of animal rescue on my resume.  There was the baby pheasant rescued from the swather that I drowned trying to make it drink milk from a plastic cup, and the entire litter of kittens that I accidentally baked to death by placing them on top of a heating pad in a little box when their mother was killed by a tractor.  I said history.  Not successful history.  In my defense, there was no internet back then to look up proper procedures for animal saving. Nonetheless, nowadays I like to think of myself as reformed.

Apparently not.

Horsecrazy Annabelle does know there is an internet.  She knows that you can look up most things on it.  And when we determined that bird wasn’t dead after pulling it out from behind the bales, she asked in her sweetest voice “Mom, could we maybe bring it in the house and look up on the computer what to do?” Ah, the wonders of technology.  And a five year old. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

We brought the bird in and settled him for the night, taping the box shut and placing it in a warm place, exactly as suggested on the wild bird saving web page we found.  I was sure he would be dead by morning.

He wasn’t.

Handsome Hubby let me know that he was a pigeon, not a dove.  I hate pigeons.  Flying Rats.  Scourge of a Barn.  Good only for training bird dogs.  And target practice.  Then Handsome Husband said the following words…  “Annabelle, what do you think we should do with the bird?” I said he was Handsome, not smart.

Now we have a half dead pet pigeon living in a dog crate in the garage.  His name is Perry.  I’ll keep you posted on his recovery.