What a soggy weekend. Yesterday was a merry-go-round of walking a dog in the rain, drying it off (hands and knees, face in wet dog fur, trying to reach the foot on the other side), driving to the next house in my wet rain coat and doing the whole thing again. Go home and put on dry clothes and just about the time I’d get over being cranky, it was time to go out and do it all over again. I had vacation walkies in the morning, afternoon and night. That means at 10 pm last night I was changing into dry clothes for the last time of the day. On some of the visits I get to scoop out cat litter boxes in my wet clothes. Fun! It’s been the same so far today. This will be my schedule for at least 3 more days and wouldn’t you know it’s supposed to rain the whole time.

One very sad thing on my morning rounds this today. As I was going up the back walk to a house, a bird came swooping out of a tree and ran smack into the chrome barbeque grill. It was completely stunned and fell to the sidewalk at my feet, kind of twitching. I could see it was a juvenile Cardinal. I was so shocked and all I could do for a moment was watch it helplessly. I kept saying I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you. After a moment, I knelt down beside it and gathered it’s wings together and moved it over to the shrubbery. It’s head kind of hung as I was carrying it, and it sort of moan/squawked. I laid it under a shrub, where it wouldn’t be rained on steadily and stepped back. After a moment I helped it get sort of sitting up with the wings tucked in. It was kind of blinking and looking around. It was easy to tell it was young, it still had those young bird eyes, kind of some extra skin around them. It’s poor feathers were all bedraggled and I could see some left on the barbeque where it had smacked. It was still sitting there knid of blinking at the world when I returned from the dog walk. I go back this evening, so I can see if it’s still there. If it is, I don’t think it will survive. This kind of thing just breaks my heart. There is so little we can do to help wild animals. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to just leave them alone, possibly suffering…

There is so much rain falling this weekend I brought the planters and pots with my lettuce sprouts up on the porch to drain out. I’m afraid it may be too late and they may have gotten just too soggy to survive. Once the pots drained they seem to be standing up alright…between the wild animals and the weather, gardening can be very disappointing! I so had my hopes up for fresh salads in the fall…

And just to brighten up this post, here’s a picture of the Boy from May when the sun was shining: