tiny bird, mountain clouds

Tonight we found a baby quail. Maybe its mom lost it, or maybe it lost her, but either way, we found it in a cat's mouth, so under a heat lamp in our garage it went.

It was still shivering an hour later, so I held it for a long time, cupped in my hands. The tiny wings, the tiny beak, the tiny down...the thing was perfect. And after thirty minutes it had stopped shaking.

Amazing that something so tiny can be so perfect.

There were big storm clouds tonight too, and the kind of monstrous thunder that rumbles (as opposed to the kind that crashes). We wrapped ourselves in heavy quilts and slept out under the storm clouds, the whole family. When I woke up, the mountains were tiny against the currents of clouds. Parts of the sky looked like paint-by-number.