Thursday, April 17, 2008

I HATE SPRING

Doesn't that sound terrible. Not that winter wasn't long enough, cold enough or snowy enough (it never is for me, I love winter! and notoriously hunker down like a well-cared for groundhog.
But every spring there's a disaster, either a stray baby bunny, or a bird that sluggishly forgot to fly in the face of disaster (everything from tumbling prematurely from it's nest to facing up to the neighborhood cats.)
Two nights ago my vegging in from of IDOL was interrupted by what I though was a loud quacking sound. It didn't appear to come closer or move at all for that matter.
"Keep Lily in," I yelled not wanted to complicate matters by adding a nutty dalmation to what was CERTAINLY an injured duck.
I looked behind me; my daughters had followed me with flashlights (bless them, if you announce something loud enough you really can call out the reserves, even on American Idol night!)
"The sound isn't moving,"my youngest added moving the flashlight over the ground from where the sound came. "Oh, no," she murmured scrambling over the chicken wire fence that serves as property boundery all around us.
"There's a dog involved."
"Great," said my eldest. "You're going to be defending an injured duck against a dog?"
My youngest, now in our neighbors pitchblack heavily wooded yard swiftly spanning light over the ground. "I don't see the duck"
"Well what do you see," I called back, now heavily suspicious that we were in proverbial, uh, "wild goose chase".
"Hang on," she called back. "A dog. A little orange dog tied up out here"
"Where's the duck?" my eldest and I called back.
"Do you still hear quacking?"
"Yes, we do!"
"Well guess what. That's the sound this dog makes."
Her beam of light returned to the fence, where she scrambled over as deftly as before, muttering something about "better not tear my last pair of clean jeans."
We all gladly, plowed back into the house for the last five minutes of Idol.

I hate spring.