Stupid nature...

We live in a fairly rural area. Rural enough that I routinely swerve to avoid deer, have seen a bear while out for a walk, had a bobcat sun itself in our backyard and had a neighbor spot a moose (a moose!) near our house just last week. I can handle all of that and even think it's very cool (I would love to see a moose in person).

But the smaller stuff gets me. And it's not just the squirrel that ran the wrong way last week and committed suicide under my car tire. Yesterday, I opened the door to let the dogs out into the backyard, looked down and spotted a bird laying on the step. Quickly getting the dogs back into the house, I assessed the situation... which basically included a rundown of every male I could call to come take care of the situation and determining they were all otherwise busy (I don't know if my former neighbor still reads the blog, but I was wishing I could have called E to come take care of it for me!)

So I manned up, wrote the Pretend Husband a text telling him how lucky he is to have a pregnant wife willing to do this stuff and carefully approached the bird with my shovel extended. Oh, and I chanted, "please don't move, please don't move" to the bird the whole time (I was barely able to deal with a dead bird and may have died if it actually moved). Luckily, the bird was dead, and it stayed that way as I maneuvered it onto the shovel and headed for the woods.

I said a quick "rest in peace" and then lovingly and reverently... flung it as far into the woods as I could. Then I went back inside to text the details to the PH and promise him to give him a little more of a send-off when his time comes.

As if that wasn't enough adventure for the week, I walked into the garage this afternoon to find two birds banging against the inside of the window trying to get out. When they wouldn't take the hint of the two open garage doors, I figured I was going to have to open the window for them. I had to reach between the birds to unlock the window and then went outside to lower the top pane. One of the birds was laying against the glass while the other tried to bang its way out.

While lowering the glass, I somehow got one of the birds stuck between the panes of glass and there was no going back because it looked like I would have decapitated it if I tried. I somehow managed to slide one of the panes out of the way without killing the bird and it flew away. The other one took some prompting (i.e. banging on the glass) for it to find its escape route.

Also, I think we may have a mouse living in our family room. But I refuse to think about it (I've already let it out the door once) and it will be up to the PH to deal with whatever encounter springs up on us next. If he won't, then I'm moving to the city.