RV Work is for the Birds

With less than seven weeks to go, Johnny decided he would get to work on the vehicle part of the RV. To get up and go as far as we want it to go, the truck desperately needs a tune-up, some brake work, and for lack of better feeling, new shocks. Its recent position underneath the big tree meant it could probably use a hot bath too. He worked diligently on the truck, replacing the plugs and the wires and went to fire the engine up when he heard a faint squeaking sound. He figured something was loose, but he wrote it off as something he would fixed later. He then proceeded to test the hazards, turn signals, and the horn and discovered that they each alternate working. The more inspecting he did, the louder and more frequent the squeaking got. He decided to check out the wiring under the hood to figure out just what is loose and as he reached through the grill, he passed his hand over what felt like rough and dry pine straw. Thinking that he had cleared all of that out when he first started working on the RV, he started removing the straw. He touched of handful of warm pillow stuffing-like material and, with a disgusted look on is face, decided to take a closer look. He peeked his head inside the grill and the thing inside the grill answered him with a quick *peep*! Staring back at him were five baby birds in a nest!




He packed up his tools and called it a day. He decided it would be best not to disturb the nest. He wanted to give the mother bird a chance to move the baby birds out of the nest before he removed it to do further work.

After our junkyard find on Saturday, we decided to get started on some more RV work. I began laying the new floors down and he started taking apart the steering wheel to pop up the wiring. Our work bled well into the evening and continued again bright and early on Sunday morning. Our dog was going nuts at 8:00AM Sunday morning, so since we were up anyway, we decided it was time to get some parts that we needed from the hardware store. Upon our return, we noticed that the mother bird had moved all her baby birds out of the nest and they were testing their wings out in the side yard. No wonder the dog went crazy in the morning! I peeked my head into the house to check on the dog, who was steadily waiting in attack position (her eyes get all big and her ears stand straight up). She jumped up on the gate and paused as she listened for something to happen. I let out a quick *peep* and the dog jumped around in circles and went nuts again! Laughing my way out because I have such a gullible and easy to tease dog, I walk into the backyard just in time to watch Johnny scoop up a birdie from the side yard.



This little birdie must have gained wings of steel because he was not afraid of Johnny. The bird sat comfortably in his hand while his mother sounded off all kinds of chatter in distress nearby. The bird even hopped up on Johnny's shoulder and admired the view from up there!



Pretty soon, all of the bird's brothers and sisters came over to reprimand their brother bird, but they soon opened up their eyes to see the same coolness I see in Johnny and decided to stick around. They hopped on board too! At one point in time, he had four baby birds hanging out on him.

Does that not remind you of the crazy bird lady from Home Alone?

I even held one too, and I am petrified of birds that close to me. I kept making a noise because I was afraid and the bird answered me with a nonchalant stare, like he could care less!!



The birds spent about 40 minutes hanging out with us. The entire time, the mother was flying around telling the baby birds to get away from us (one of the birds probably got yelled at for being on the motorcycle too!)