The Blustery Day

There was a Winnie the Pooh show that had the following dialogue in it: 

Gopher:    If I was you, I'd think about skedaddlin' out of here.

Winnie the Pooh:    Why?

Gopher:    'Cause it's "Winds-day."

It was Wednesday indeed and there were wind warnings on my phone.  A stiff south breeze was blowing. The wind chimes were chiming and dead limbs were falling in the yard.  The wife and I had been praying for RAIN, but none came.  Every day the forecast teases us with minute chances of the wet stuff.  We look to the horizon for darkened clouds, but none comes.

The grass continues to dry up.  The cows are looking for green grass.  You know, the stuff that's supposed to be greener on the other side of the fence.  I have been moving them into the yard to eat, and they are mowing it down fast.  The rain didn't come, but winds did.  I was walking in the yard, picking up fallen limbs.  I use the limbs for barbecuing.  The live oak and pecan branches make great coals on which to barbeque.

While picking up sticks, I stumbled across this dude:

In a foul (or fowl) mood

Apparently, the high winds blew that poor little bird and his brother, or sister, out of the nest.  Here is it's sibling:

They were both squawking and carrying on like you would expect if you fell out of the nest.  If you look closely at the wing tips, they're blue.  The color of the wings mixed with the shape of the angry little beak, clued me in that these were immature blue jays.  Blue jays are a vicious, yet beautiful bird.  They swoop down on you in the yard.  Some birds sing nice songs.  Not these, the squawk angrily.

Speaking of that sound, I looked directly up above me and I could spot the momma bird on the limb of the live oak.  Can you see her?  I can't speak "blue jay,"  but she was not happy.  I'd be upset, too.  What was going to happen to them?  In a happily-ever-after type movie, the mama bird swoops down, lifts the two babies on her back and they fly back up to the nest where they are tethered to the nest lest they fall.

But their odds to survive is about as strong as our chances of precipitation lately.  Ginger, the cat, is always on patrol.  If she finds these young paratroopers, well, their time on earth is done.  It's a tragic story, and yet, that is how life plays out in the animal kingdom in the aftermath of a blustery day.  The strongest survive.