Bird Dog

There was no critter near the patio in the back yard this morning, so I conclude that Ruby did indeed catch another possum and that once the danger had departed, so did the possum. Overall, this is a good thing.

It did cause Gretchen, however, to remind me that I had a story from last week that I've been intending to post. This seems like as good a time as any...

So the other day I wandered downstairs to look for Gretchen after she had gotten back from taking Julie to school. She was decamped in a chair in the family room and let me know that there was a problem: a bird had gotten in the house.

Well, that explained Ruby's general state of agitation. Ruby is nothing if not a bird dog and she was certainly interested in sniffing out where this bird had gone. In the meantime, I decided to go close the doors to the library and the bathroom, as I wasn't greatly interested in having the bird go investigating the other first floor rooms that I could actually close.

But Ruby was digging frantically in one corner of the room near a pair of windows. Now you have to understand that corner is full of things. There is Ruby's big dog bed that sits right in front of two small, wooden, open-backed bookcases full of toys that the kids no longer play with and a corner shelf between them full of some decorative things and other things that the kids no longer play with and to the right of that assemblage is my big, old, flat Magnepan speaker in front of the subwoofer that is holding up two tubs full of toys that the kids no longer play with.

You start to get the picture, I hope. (That picture being that we have a lot of toys that the kids no longer play with.) Anyway, despite Gretchen's belief that the bird was *not* in the corner, Ruby had a tremendous amount of belief that there *was* a bird in the corner. I decided to trust the dog.

I moved Ruby's bed away. Then I pulled the two bookcases away from the corner. This was an adventure, because things kept trying to fall off, but I managed to get them out with only one thing taking a dive. Then I removed the corner shelf. Still no bird.

I moved the tubs off the top of the subwoofer. Still no bird, but Ruby really wanted to get at that subwoofer. I slid subwoofer away from the wall and --

Poof! Bird! Really scared bird who flew into one of the two corner windows and then headed toward the open patio door.

And into the clear glass transom above it. Way to go, bird.

I grabbed a broom to chivvy the bird out the door with, but before I could do anything effective, the bird smacked into the transom glass another time, then dove down and flew briskly out the open door with Ruby in hot pursuit.

I closed the door.

And then I cleaned out the corner.

And then I put everything back. Including all of the toys that the kids don't play with any more.

Except for the two tubs that had been on top of my subwoofer. They are going to the basement.

Soon.