The grandkids from next door descend for three days. We knew their coming by an old mattress that’d been drug from a trash heap into the barn on top of our things. The kids needed it for god only knows what. They came around milking time to check on a bucket of baby birds they left in the barn. The swallows’ nest fell in front of them- scattering three young birds- but don’t worry they know how to flutter.
The mattress was a landing pad for the kids to throw the birds up so the birds could learn to fly. There were only two birds though, the third had not been found and still was under the debris somewhere. I encourage them to put the nest up high in a bowl with the babies, hoping against hope the mom might still take them.
The weekend passes with the children climbing to the top of the hay stack- about 20 feet high- an appropriate altitude for flight lessons. The babies tossed in the air fluttering down into the goat pen where 194 hooves wait to stomp them. Another child scaled the fence to retrieve the babies- a reasonable excuse to enter the forbidden goat pen. The terrorized birds were alive for the second day.
My days filled with the fear my dog would snap at the squeals of delight and eat one of the grand children- slinging their body parts across the yard with the deer skulls, hides, and dead rock chuck.
The little boy greeted me on the last day with a present- a wriggling live trout about 6 inches long- for my kitten to snack on. The kitten heard them coming and did not show herself. The kids and crowds pulled out that night- quiet and a dead fish on the kitten’s dish all that were left behind.