Last year, while visiting my sister in Boise, she showed me a quails nest hidden amongst one of her outside hanging plants that she had been spritzing with water, and there must have been about 8 eggs the mother was attending to.  Within a day or two, the mother had seemingly abandoned the brood just as they began emerging from their eggs.  Later in the afternoon I walked out on the porch and noticed a couple of young hatchlings laying and struggling on the ground, and couldn't figure out how that happened, so as gently as we could, scooped them up and put them back in their nest.  A couple hours later we again found a few of them on the ground.  The mother was not around to push them out, so they must have just wiggled out on their own.  My niece called some animal place to see if anything could be done to help the little guys, but was told to let nature take its course, so it was a little sad knowing that they probably wouldn't make it without a mother to take care of them.

I decided to use this life drama as a memory for Karen's birthday card.  Though not wanting to seem heartless, I couldn't help finding a bit of humor in it...just for the card.  Now I guess I'll go roast in hell...