Nature

This is a picture I took with my sucky camera phone yesterday (thanks for nothing, Motorola) of the deer that come out in the mornings beside my house. There were about 7 or 8 of them beside my driveway, and when I walked over to my car after taking their picture, they all turned-tail and ran into the woods behind my barn.

That was a much more peaceful end to my morning routine, than say, THIS MORNING, when my cat caught a little cardinal by snatching it out of a tree. Yes, he actually leapt up and caught the bird while it was sitting in an apple tree in my horse pasture. I was so devastated and I chased down the cat and finally got him to let go of the bird, at which point I picked it up and ran with it (the bird...not the cat). It was a baby cardinal, which is probably why it was a bit slow and was too close to the ground in the tree. Plus, I saw my cat headed to the tree and yelled at him before he even jumped, and the poor little bird never even saw it coming. Why are there baby birds so late in the year? Why was he sitting so low in the tree? Why didn't he fly off when I yelled at my cat for stalking him, before he even jumped into the tree?

I put him on a shelf in my horse feed room with a little bit of cracked corn. Although he was looking around and bright-eyed (and he bit my thumb really hard with his beak), he wasn't flying and he wasn't moving his legs. I'm not very hopeful, but I set him up by a window so he can see out and maybe die peacefully (if nothing else). I was so mad at my cat. I'm going to have his teeth pulled and he can eat Fancy Feast for the rest of his life, for all I care. I feed him well! He doesn't need to kill birds. Or squirrels. Or rabbits. Or mice. Or moles. Or chipmunks.

So traumatic...