Exceptional Having to dig a mass grave in my backyard A memorial to my victims. by Mary Vigasin

Having taken over most, if not all, the household chores, I have had hits and misses.  Remember my mowing story where I stripped the lawn of grass? Well, I took over all the cleaning chores. To wash them out, I placed a white wastebasket on the back porch and a trash barrel in the yard. However, after an hour of trying, I could not get the hose to attach to the house faucet to water each item down. So, I decided to let nature do the job.  We were expecting heavy rain for the next two days. Four days later, I noticed the white wastepaper basket was half full of water, so I turned it over, and a dead bird floated out. Knowing I was on my own to dig a grave for the bird, I got the necessary tools to do the job. The ground is more rocks than dirt, so digging a grave took me a while. I turned my attention to emptying the trash barrel. When I turned it over, six birds floated out. My bird grave was now a mass grave for Starlings.  Given the hard soil, the best I could do was to give them a shallow grave.   After digging and placing them in their final resting place, I added kitty litter to ensure the birds were covered. Feeling a little guilty about the deaths, I placed two stones on the grave. I am told that the rocks symbolize someone visiting, someone who cared. The next day, I went to see the graves, and two birds had their wings sticking straight in the air.  It was like they were giving me the middle finger. To ensure the birds' middle fingers were kept in their graves, I bought some planting soil—30 lbs. of it. I added it to the grave, and now I had a small dirt hill. In honor of the birds, I named the hill: Starlings in Heaven. Yet, each morning, when I step outside, the chatter of birds becomes deafening with the Starlings and Bluejays. Eight Starlings are usually perched on the overhead wires. They stare down at me as if judging my carelessness in not keeping the barrels upside down, as my husband used to do, and I let seven of their friends drown. They are no longer spooked by my presence and have taken ownership of the overhead wires. Are they planning revenge? Recognized Author Notes My guess is that the starlings are waiting for food, I have stopped feeding outside cats - now adopted. I guess the smooth sides of the plastic wastebasket and barrel made it impossible for the birds to escape the water.

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