Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Never Underestimate the Tendency to Bolt

I thought that quote was about me, I'd glanced at a book in Costco and inside it saw that quote, and bought the book. So this morning, I'm looking at it closer, and beneath the abovementioned chapter title, was the first sentence, attributing the quote to Pema Shodron, a Buddist Monk/teacher (as I understand it), and darned, if I hadn't met her one time in California years ago, courtesy of my friend Smartypants, quite by accident, when I got invited to lunch and swimming the next day at a farm she where she spends time in the summer! Flash forward 5 miutes, after I'd called my friend Chrisanne and told her of the strange coincidence.

I went outside, the birds were making a ruckus, and the one most distraught was a female pheasant, newly widowed. We'd thought it a bright idea to throw another male in there, evidently too soon, and she was freaked. I opened the door to change her water and talk to her, and she did what. Bolted. Never happened before, and after standing out in the open, sort of dazed, when I went after her, she took off flying, maybe 25 feet in the air, to a tree wayyyyyy in the back. I calmly trekked to the back, keeping my eyes on the general area, soon seeing glimpses of her on the ground, then just weeds moving and I caught her by the back fence, after plowing thru all kinds of burrs and brambles, but I got her. She could have gone thru the holes in the back fence, but thank gosh she gave it up when she did. She's brown in a brown world back there, we'd never of found her. I returned her to the cage, put the unwanted male in his old palace, and am leaving her to mourn in her own way. alone til she gets bored.

So the bolting thing wasn't about me. For now.