Sunday Sadness

We had a little drama at the Cheney homestead this weekend...so let me see if I can explain it to you. So when we got home from the Cheney reunion a couple weeks ago, Cleo was showing the girls around the place when they came upon a small bird nest with 4 little eggs in it. It was in a wooden basket that was on his "hunting porch". Grandpa explained the process of laying eggs and how the Mama Bird cares for them until they hatch and that you can't touch them and every night they would go out and check on the eggs to see if they had hatched yet. Yesterday (the 4th) we had been downtown enjoying the festivities all afternoon and when we came home the girls rested for a bit and then went outside to play. Unknown to Cleo and I, they "checked on" the birds nest all by themselves and little by little last night the details of their escapade became clear to us both. They had gone out to the porch, Launa climbed up on the milkcan while Teiha kept a look out, and then Launa reached in grabbed 3 of the eggs and proceeded to crush them in her hands. Now, I'm pretty sure they were just curious to see what the little birds looked like and didn't really mean to kill them, but nonetheless they did kill them! They then proceeded to hide the evidence behind a big tree in the woods---funny girls!!! Well it was after dark last night when all this came out so Cleo couldn't really go check on things so first thing this morning he went out and sure enough...there was only 1 little egg left. He calmly came into the house, herded the girls up, and had a really long "talk" with them about how wrong this was and how sad the Mama Bird must be to discover 3 of her babies were dead. For those of you who really know Cleo, you know how much he loves nature and all animals and he saw this is a perfect opportunity to give the girls a much needed Life Lesson. They were punished by having to sit seperately for 1/2 hour and be quiet, which wasn't easy for them. They truly seemed to be sorry for their deeds and after punishment time was over, Grandpa took them outside to give the baby birds a proper burial.
This is the lone surviving bird egg...sure hope the Mama Bird won't abandon this one

Teiha and launa covering the grave

Thie girls saying a prayer over the grave

The "headstone" that Cleo made for the grave.

I wasn't out there when the burial took place, but Cleo said it was pretty cute. Their little prayer was really sweet and they seemed very sorry to have killed them and most likely will never do this again. I just wanted to share this touching story with y'all and hope that the girls learned a valuable lesson this weekend.