Rescue Rangers

Wow. Did we have an adventure today. The darlings were outside playing with two little friends when they came screeching that there was a dead bird outside. Gross. Of course, I pushed through the crowd of crumb crunchers children to see what was going on. There, just off the patio was a dove that was, as Miracle Max from The Princess Bride described, "mostly dead." The dove was breathing, one of the darlings pointed out. Ighhk. What to do? "Let's let her rest. Everyone inside!" Okay nature, take your course. A nice nasty cat would be good...no spare parts please.

After our playmates went home my own darlings and I went outside. I fully expected the bird to be eaten gone, but she had actually hopped a little ways away.
Okay. I had an ethical dilemma. What do I do? She wasn't injured enough to be put on the alley-cat-buffet, and we're not going to mummify a live bird (we're studying Egypt in school), but she sure wasn't coming into my house. (Despite what many may think because I'm a breastfeeding, non-vaccinating homeschooler, I am actually not a crunchy granola earth mother. I enjoy wildlife in the wild). I sure wasn't prepared to render first aid myself, but I did want to help it. Aha, call the head of the household!

I called The Man, who told me to just leave it there till he got home. I think I could hear one of his patients snickering in the background as he heard The Man's side of the phone call. Thank you wise one, but I still have a bird here that something has to be done to help it. Super Dog's about to scratch a hole in the sliding glass door to get out to it, and my children are going to need thousands and thousands of dollars worth of therapy if I just leave it outside de-feathered and bleeding.

So...here's the adventure. We found the address to the Wildlife Rescue center. Hey, it's only 55 miles away. My bigger darlings helped to pack lunches. I found some surgical gloves (we perform unlicensed surgery in the garage on weekends) and carefully put the bird in last year's Easter basket. (Thanks Easter Bunny!) Wow. Did you know doves have really long and scary beaks when you're up close? Frightening. So, as my mom would say, we go "barreling off" in the big green van in search of the wildlife rescue, God-knows where, not telling anyone else what's going on.

I didn't worry until we had travelled several back farm roads in the Texas hill country (which was gorgeous) and lost service on my cell phone. But no worries. We found the place and just drove on in. There was actually a building labeled "animal receiving." So, I took my four darlings, and an injured suburban dove, and sloshed into the building. They took our dove and gave us a special ID number so that we could call and check on it. How cool is that? The "animal receiving" lady asked if we wanted to make a donation. While that would be nice if I had millions of dollars, I figured the gallons, and gallons, and gallons of gas I spent bringing it out was enough of a donation.

I really hope that they didn't feed it to one of the mountain lions out back that's there for rehab. As far as my kids know...."Ice Cream" or "Tweety" (depending upon whom you ask) is in an animal rehab hospital.

God is good though. My kids really felt good about what we did. I loved being spontaneous with them (which many of you know I'm not very often). I hope that they always remember this. I sure will.