Saturday, August 21, 2010

The big letters on the sign are painted and all the weeds are pulled from beneath the front porches and on the next trip to Bath (the next to last before we make our final departure) I’ll pick up a small paint brush and black paint to do the rest of the small letters, and I’ll get that lamp at the antique place that will look nice over the kitchen sink, and Oliver’s offspring, who France named Oliver Junior, has a broken wing.  Connie’s friend John said you just have to let nature take its course and the chick will be recycled.  I kind of nodded agreement because I know this is how it works.

But we’ve gotten to know Oliver  And Oliver knows us.  We stood not five feet apart the other night after the sun had just set and kind of watched the sky together.  Okay, he was pointed into the wind as he always is and that was toward the sunset and I was looking at it too.  But when we weren’t, we were turning our heads toward each other.  Maybe it was purely self defense on his part.  But he could have flown away.

We’ve seen the eggs they laid last early June and watched them hatch; heard the chicks before we saw them and then marveled the first time we saw them up on the Oil House and heard their feeble little chirps even though their bodies were almost as big as dad and mom but they were still brown and not white, and they got up there somehow.  They were taking short flights.  One day I discovered the two on top of the Whistle House.  Ollie, Jr. was backing Oliver down the slope of the roof chirping to be fed, pecking at Oliver’s beak, and Oliver was just backing away far enough until he took flight and the chick followed and it dawned on me that Oliver was no longer interested in seguining (which means to regurgitate, actually, so I’ve coined the word for this purpose) food down the chick’s gullet but by now was probably showing it how to feed itself by showing him where to find it and how to catch it.

So now, this is something Ollie, Jr. can’t do for himself, and I’m afraid he’s been left to his own demise.  There’s nothing more to be expected of Oliver; how can one imagine what he makes of a broken wing and the ramifications.  France had to intervene and I’m grateful for it.  It would have been painful to watch it waste away and be scarfed up by a Great Black Back.  She’s feeding it protein mostly, so far in the form of dog food in a can Cyndy left behind.  We made a few calls and found a water bird specialist who says there are agencies and people who have taken on these situations, and now have hopes of taking it to someone on Wednesday who will set the wing and hopefully one day, return it to Seguin.