Tyler's post. One of the few.

First, let me start by saying that my English is better spoken then written. So don't judge. Second, my time is very short with my new work schedule so don't get used to me posting things. :-)

I was out working on Friday knocking doors and as I started into a culdesac I watched a hawk come out of the sky swooping in real fast at a little spot on the road. Within 2-3 seconds I heard crows going nuts in the huge trees all around me. Then without warning 4 crows swooped in on this hawk and so he took off. Just after getting airborne another 4 crows joined in on the fight and almost took that hawk to the ground! It was really amazing! I was routing for the crows. I decided to see the object that was causing so much drama in this cute little neighborhood. I walked to the spot where the hawk landed and saw a baby crow laying there in the road. It was breathing and from what I could tell no major wounds.

Anyone that knows me or my background knows that at that moment my thoughts went from next door that I was supposed to knock to " ah crap. How am I going to keep this guy alive." I started looking for a place to put him near the tress that seemed to have the most noise coming from them (crows are extremely family oriented and so there where a lot of upset on lookers) and still keep him safe from the elements. I found a place that I felt was going to be good and started to set him down. A women hod come out of her house and seen me silently debating with myself ( she probably thought I had some major mental problems) and asked me if had a baby bird. I thought my prayers were answered! She told me to bring him into her moms house ( which house I had knocked on earlier that morning and she had said no thanks to my pest control service) and we could decide what to do from there. She informed me that "there are a ton of cats around here and so he wont survive long if he gets left outside." I was thinking to myself " well he may have had a long fall and he is bleeding from his mouth and it looks like one of his eyes is not going to be good if he lives at all." Regardless, once again anyone who knows me knows that I can't just let a helpless animal die without even giving him a chance. So she offered to keep him in a box until I could come back later that night and take him home. Taking him home was going to be another issue in its self since we are already hard pressed for room in our trailer. I called Kris and told her what happened and asked her to pick up some food for him.

So later that night at about 9pm (about 4 hours later) I stopped by the ladies house, who wished me good luck, and started home with my driving partner miss Jenny Clemons. I went to the office and quickly took care of my paper work for the day and then the girls picked me up and we drove home to get the newest member of our little fam home, warm and food.

Thankfully he ate and as we talked about what may happen I taught Kris how to feed him. I guess that it is times like this that I should be glad that I have raised young birds before. Then next morning baby bird was screaming for food!! We got him full changed his sheets and then I went to work. Kris just became a mother of 3! We decided then that since he had made it through the night that we should give him a name. Because it is still "sketchy that he will live to flying age, which Liv had heard us talking about, it was determined that his name would be Sketch. Saturday went good and it was my short day so I came home and he was doing really well. Screaming when we opened his box and he saw us and moving around a lot to try and get the best angle to take the cat food from our fingers. With only the one eye we have trouble getting the food to his mouth some times because he thinks that he has a better angle. After we navigate the feeding we wrap him up in his bed and he falls back to sleep. We are excited that he is doing good. In not thinking out the long term situation, I am now wondering what we are going to be doing when he gets to old to be in the box but not old enough to fly out on his own. Oops. he he. Not sure it is going to go over well having a baby crow hopping around the trailer nipping at the girls and making bird messed in the trailer. Hmmmm. O well sometimes we have to make things work that are hard for the greater good right? Liv and Kate have really taken to him and when it comes to feeding time Liv will make high pitch squealing nosies that get him to open his mouth so we can feed him, all the while Kate watches and laughs.

Kris has been awesome about taking on another one of my responsibilities that I try to take on and can't with my new long work schedule. She has been doing research about crows and reading what we can do to help him become ready for living in the wild again with other crows. Because that breed of bird is so family oriented they will adopt pretty much any other crow into their family. If we can get him to flying age he has a good chance of finding a family. But there are a couple of other things that have crossed my mind. Will he be ready to fly before we are ready to leave for NV at the end of the summer? Is he going to regain sight in his left eye? Will he even want to go back into the wild since he has been part of our family pretty much his whole life? We will have to cross those bridges when we get there. For now the most important thing is to keep him fed and warm. He barely has any feathers so I am guessing that he is about 4-7 days old. We have a while before we need to make those decisions. Life is a funny thing. Choices that are given to us every day. To be happy or not? To wake up or roll over and go back to sleep? To try and save a baby bird or to let it die because it is going to be to much of a pain and a heartache to take it home and try to preserve its short lived life at that point? Well at this point because of my nature I route for the underdog. With that comes huge amounts of hard work and taking on things that we hadn't intended until the choice was presented. Finding ourselves spread thin and wondering "what in the heck was I thinking" we are also brought to humility and remembering what this life is about. And for me and my fam that is service and love. Even for people and things that may not deserve it or at the moment "be worth it." I hope that this is not something that you all will roll your eyes at and think " what a joke" or " waste of time." I hope that everyone will be able to get something that will help them in their life. Wish us luck and please help us pray for our new baby. Our little Sketch.