Chapter 5, Byrd Report

Day 6.

July 11, 2003

Hekyl, Jekyl, and Hyde are getting use to riding in a vehicle. They never made a peep on the way to work today.  Surely something had to be wrong.  But when we got them home and opened their “nest cooler”, they were their usual selves all chirruping at the same time demanding to be fed.

I remember my own children behaving in much the same way…they’d fall right to sleep in a moving vehicle, but let me stop at a red light they’d wake up and want something to eat. (Are we there yet!!)

The babies grew out another quarter inch of feathers last night.  I was musing to myself today and to no one in particular, ya know, growing that fast has to be wicked painful and itch like a rash of poison ivy!  It’s no wonder they are constantly preening now and stretching out their legs and wings.

It’s amazing to see them transmogrify right before my very eyes. Maybe they will all be like the little ugly duckling—instead of morphing into common starlings, they will miraculously transform into 3 beautiful indigo buntings or something equally as bright, bold and unusual.

Alas, right now they have the kind of beaks that only a  mother—this mother—can love.  They are beautiful to me and I appreciate their uniqueness in the now moments.  They won’t always be little, and some day soon they will have a strong urge to be with their own kind.

Come to think of it…some days I feel like that too.

I got in late last eve. It was my 8th year anniversary of sobriety, so I went to an AA meeting to pick up my medallion.

Neil took the babies home with him in their little picnic cooler nest.

When I got home he had already transferred them to the much larger camping cooler they now spend most of their time in while we are home.  He had the warming lamp shinning on them.  “For how long?” I asked as I raced to the studio to turn it off before it fricasseed them.

“Not long,” he assured me. However when I got to them, they were all huddled as far away from the lamp as they could possibly get.  He said it was chilly in the room when he got home.  How’re these guys going to survive in the wild of winter if we send them to the sauna every time the temps drop below 75?

Photo by Carolyn Hasenfrats (2014) From Internet