Fine Feathered Friends

Yesterday we discovered that the phone line has gremlins ... On Friday, we found a gnawed line and replaced it -- but no evidence on Saturday of what's wrong. The internet still works, but we don't have an "interface box" from A T & T, so we can't run the first home test on their online tutorial ... Luckily, we do have our little "burn" phones so we can call others in an emergency. I guess that's why many people have cell phones, Honestly, my students have them to text -- I'd hate to know how much they or their parents spend, even with unlimited texting and family plans. Unfortunately, the ability to text has nothing to do with one's ability to communicate effectively in a composition. r u w me?

Before we could leave for our work session today, I called Mom and got word that she'd found a baby bird ... We took off on a mission of mercy, which didn't quite work out the way we thought. She'd put the little sparrow under a collander on her kitchen table ... he'd call loudly -- and she thought he was "just talking." Well, he was ... Joy checked him out, and we took him with us ...
This baby sparrow probably had fallen from thenest while he was "branching," and his wings were just strong enough to break his fall. His beak had the turned-down frown of the bird in the picture -- he reminded me of Joy's finch Coffee, although Joy says that it's cardinals who are related to the finches and not sparrows. He kept calling ... and calling ... when I went into Mar's bedroom, he just stared at me as if saying, "Are you gonna let me out so I can go home?" ... and called more until all of us decided that enough was enough. The little guy wasn't eating, wasn't calming down ... and Joy commented that we should've convinced Mom to let him take his chances in the back yard. So, we packed up our gear and the little bird and headed back to Mom's house.

When we arrived, the sparrow baby called -- and birds hidden in the trees called back. The parents were around, somewhere, if we could persuade them to come down. We found a shady spot near the bird feeder and placed him in a tree. He fluttered down, and Joy almost couldn't find him -- he was camoflaged among the green plants, and so still that you might not see him unless you were looking right at him. We put him into a second tree; he fluttered down on the other side of the fence ... and the calls from the trees stopped a while after. Hopefully, the parents found their lost chick. But this incident did convince Mom that little wildlings need to stay in the trees and not come into the house ... though we did leave the cage so she could place babies inside if she's worried that a cat might find a chick before the parents do ... The birds in the neighborhood come to her feeder and bird bath, so an open cage shouldn't scare them away.

Afterwards, we went back to Mar's house, where we built necklaces ... I re-wrote a short piece that describes the human/Fey court of Melene ... Mar mentioned that she had a story in mind that she wanted to write; she has enough in the outline that she has a good cast of characters and the beginning of a plot. She liked the subplots that the "letter" hints at, so perhaps we'll see a story later in the year.

... I have a chapter outline to work on myself. Like Mar's story, it's set in the Renaissance although (thus far) I don't have any elves or fae folk. However, that could all change as soon as they cross the mountains and travel north and east along the Silk Road . . .

Art credit -- ATC artist

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

May all your dances be happy ones.