Thanks for the comment.

I’d love to see what you come up with from the butterfly and moth guide! Do blog it.

Our farm family had a crow-in-recuperation that lived in our basement for a winter. My brother (this all happened in upstate Pennsylvania) in his late teens at the time, shot a crow and wounded its wing. He couldn’t kill it after that, so brought it to the house for us to nurse it back to health. Which we did. With tongue in cheek, we named ‘him’ ‘Jim’. Jim loved dog food. We would let him up from the basement every day for socializing and our farm brand of bird-watching. A family dog, Lady, smallish but not a terrier, very loving by nature, despised Jim for unknown reasons, but probably because he brazenly stole her food. They would race round the upright freezer, her toenails clicking on the tile, and his jumping, squawking taunting calls still echo as I write this, 40 some years ago. Jim would grab a piece of dog food as he’d hop by, gobble and squawk, Lady would whine and pant and run. Round and around they’d go. This, as ridiculous as it sounds, would suffice for winter entertainment.

When Jim was tired, he’d head back down the stairs into the basement, and Lady would peer down, but not follow. Then she’d go sleep to prepare for another round.

We let Jim go the next spring, and he flew away and perched in an elm tree with his cohorts, talking and chatting. No doubt with tales of a dumb dog, and easily entertained humans.

Thanks for the prompt–and thanks for the always great stories, photos and romping with words.

I’ve been a bit leery of getting involved in Read Write Poem, fearing it’ll be yet another thing I’ll get started on all enthusiastic and then not have time or motivation to follow through, but you’re doing a good job of persuading me to dip in…