It was a wonderful week. Time was spent shopping, exploring, and inhaling the Blue Ridge Mountains’ beauty. The trip home was to be special too. My sister and I were stopping in Charlotte to shop at Macy’s and then at P.F. Chang’s. The latter both for lunch and to bring home lettuce wraps to our (hopefully) anticipating spouses. What could get in the way?
Try birdhouses.
Cynthia bought two and tucked them into the back of her van-like vehicle. We also had a styrofoam cooler on the floor of the backseat to transport said lettuce wraps and it squeaked a bit as it rubbed back and forth. The squeaks got more melodious. “Cynthia, you’re car is chirping,” I observed. “It’s the cooler,” she countered. “Well your cooler sounds like birds singing.”
“Couldn’t be,” she rejoined, “how could we hear birds . . .?” We looked at each other wide-eyed as dual realization struck. We apparently had birdhouses with benefits – birds! “We need to pull over,” I cautioned. “What if one of those birds flies out in the car and causes an accident?” We stopped and investigated. We heard birds loud and clear, covered the houses loosely with towels and drove on, debating what to do. First we thought we’d seek a woodsy place – not hard in the Blue Ridge – uncover the houses and let them fly away. We found an ideal spot and determined only one house was occupied and took it to the edge of the woods and lifted the towel. Lots of chirping – no flying. The birdhouse only had a hole in the front and space in the eaves, so we turned the structure upside down and gently decanted the occupants.
Three tiny, full feathered grey and white babies scattered in as many directions, flapping their wings furiously in vain attempts to get airborne. Good Lord! We couldn’t just let them loose and defenseless on the ground. We chased the rascals down and tucked them back into the birdhouse and into the car. Now what?
“We’ll get help,” said Cynthia. “We’ll find a pet store. They’ll know what to do and will surely keep them until they can fly and then turn them loose.” We got off the interstate and finally found a store, but they didn’t take in birds – or any other animal. “It’s against our policy,” we were told. Otherwise, we’d be a drop off spot for all kinds of animals all the time.” Disappointing, but understandable.
We were referred to a veterinarian, and when we finally found his office, found he couldn’t take them either. We were referred again, this time to an animal rescue group. They didn’t take birds. It was up to us. We cut our trip to Macy’s to an in-and-out perusal. And we decided to just pick up supper at the restaurant and defer lunch to a drive-through. We couldn’t leave those tiny aviators in a hot car.
The birds made it from the high country to the low country on hamburger bun crumbs soaked in bottled water. It wasn’t until we were about a half hour from Summerville that we decided what to do for our hitchhikers. To find out what we did and what happened, tune in next week.