Saved from certain death...

St. Francis of Assisi, Patron Saint of Animals

and friend of St. Clair, the saint of TELEVISION

Gambel's quail in Arizona

Quail baby--imagine twenty of them huddled and trembling under the Honda

This turned out to be quite the Sunday. It began quietly enough--Paul has the flu so isn't saying or doing much. I took Daisy for a walk and then had a prospective tenant look at the villa (it's for rent, you know). Paul said he needed some Theraflu to put his lights out so I, being the good girlfriend and wanting to leave the germ zone, made a beeline for the local Safeway drug aisle.

On the way back from my mission of mercy I turned onto the street that leads to our neighborhood. Suddenly, out in front of the car, I spotted a covey of baby quail. At least twenty of them, each no bigger than...well, than 1/4 of a baby chick. These little things are tiny! So there they were, huddled en masse under the Honda. I had already stopped the car in the middle of the street, the flock of babies trembling in fear and the parent quail sitting by the side of road, out of harm's way.

Two women in a car behind me stopped, too, when they saw the drama unfolding. Getting the babies safely back on land turned out to be more difficult than we figured. This being Arizona where no one is ever without a set of golf clubs, these women did not disappoint. One woman took a driver (that's a kind of golf club) out of her trunk and began to shoo each individual quail baby into my waiting hands. It took more than twenty minutes to rescue them. Not one was injured and all made it safely back to mom and dad.

As we began our rescue operation I said a quick prayer to St. Francis for his intercession and voila, it seemed to work. I wasn't hit by any of the other cars passing by, two guardian angels just happened to stop behind me with the right tools (golf clubs), and Paul was still breathing when I got home with the miracle drug, Nighttime Theraflu.