 The Battle of the Birds
Man, did I get some laughs today.
Cricket (our wonderful new Yorkie rescue) spends a lot of time in the house, sharing a chair with Nan (Mrs Ken) and watching the TV. They were doing that and I was sitting out under a tree this morning carving a piece of hickory, when Nan and Cricket came outside for a bathroom break. (The dog, not Nan.) We sat chatting and after a few minutes, Cricket--twelve pounds of unchained fury--decided to chase a mockingbird around the yard.
Soon another mockingbird joined the fray. Two mockingbirds making ghastly noises and divebombing our savage 12-pound fluffy berserker, while the Powderpuff of the Baskervilles chased them all around the back yard. (No barking, happily.)
From the outside, Cricket may look like a froo-froo dog, but she is definitely a genuine terrier. Nan called and whistled, but Cricket refused over and over to break off the battle. She chased those birds under bushes and through ivy and from one end of the yard to the other, and I laughed so much that I got a headache.
Nan called and whistled, and finally got Cricket inside ... for five seconds. Before Nan got the door shut, Cricket bolted back out, straight at the front lines of the Mockingbird Homeland Defense Brigade. The battle was back on, and once again I was nearly helpless with laughter.
Much calling and whistling and even some "mean voice" calling finally got Cricket back in the house. A couple of minutes later, Nan cracked the back door to ask me about supper tonight. And, like a flash of furry lightning, like a thunderbolt of righteous puffball wrath, Cricket came flying back toward the mockingbirds, chasing them around the rhododendrons and the ivy-covered dogwood. Nan wanted me to help her get Cricket back in the house, but I was too weak with laughter to do it.
Little Cricket LOOKS like a froo-froo on the outside, but she's definitely a tough stubborn little terrier under the fluff. And I'm still tired from laughing so much. :-) |