birdies

Saturday morning as we hauled out stain, a ladder and other painting gear to the play set (time for the annual staining...yippee!) Evie found a sweet little bird sitting next to some ornamental grass. I didn't want to spook it so we stayed back. It looked like a dove that had hurt its wing.

An hour and half later (staining complete!) we headed back to the garage and I didn't see the bird. Which was kind of strange considering I was almost positive it had a broken wing and that John was going to have dispose of it eventually. Once everything was put away I went out to investigate a bit further. Just as a I approached the tall grass a dove came flying out. My 'holy crap!' was quickly echoed with Evie's 'howee cwap!'. Lovely parenting I know...but it could have been sooooo much worse! Anyway I figured this meant that the injured bird had hobbled into the shade of the grasses for respite from the sun and heat. And to hide from Emma.

I peered through the grasses very carefully with Evie as my captive audience. She was all hunched over trying to be really quiet. Nothing. We didn't find a thing. I was bummed. Evie was really bummed. As we were walking inside up the deck stairs (just on the other side of these grasses) I heard the tiniest "cheep". I discovered it wasn't an injured dove that I had seen. It was in fact two baby doves huddled together. Mama kicked them out a bit too soon and they couldn't get lift off the ground. Poor babies!

So we gathered some bird seed and set it out for them. Evie had a blast checking on them all day to make sure they were well. Mama dove was always close making sure they were ok as well. Sunday morning when I went to check on them I noticed there were ants everywhere. I tried to swat away the ants and scared the babies into flight in the process. They took a very short flight to the neighbor's dogwood tree. Later they were back with mama in their nest in our magnolia.

McKynna told me this was obviously a lesson meant for me. That if I kick my chicks (girls) out of the nest too soon, then I'll have to rescue them and help get them back home. I told her no. I think its a lesson for you guys to know that mom will push you to try new things and explore. And if those adventures don't work out- you are always welcome back home. potato- patado I suppose. :)

We had a busy weekend with staining, mowing, going to the zoo and having Jeff over for dinner. The kids had homework and Corynn had two sleepovers. All those things considered...this was my favorite part of the whole weekend.