Leisl: May 2005

Monday, May 23, 2005

The Mourning Snort

Remember the snort from the book "Are You My Mother?" That was my wonderful husband this weekend.

We had three baby robins in our elm tree out front. Yesterday, one of them was kicked out of the nest by the other two. We found it alone & shivering in the front lawn Hubby was about to mow. We borrowed a ladder from the neighbors and he climbed up the tree, holding the baby in his gloved hand (he fashioned a "glove" out of a plastic ziploc bag so as not to get "people smell" on the baby), and carefully placed it back in the nest with it's siblings. "I feel like the snort," he said when he came back down the ladder. And all was well and happy.

This morning as I was leaving to take the little ones to school, I noticed the baby back on the front lawn. Poor little thing was voted out of the nest again. It was my intention, then, to save it - to raise it until it could take care of itself. Sadly, when I returned from dropping the kiddles off at school, it was dead. Poor little thing. I had to bury it ... all by myself ... next to the iris patch in the front garden. My stone hedgehog is it's headstone. It's been a sad, sad morning for me.