Heroes for animals & could-have-beens

She is, indisputably, a hero for animals – and just the person you’d want to have in the neighborhood if your beloved pet were in mortal danger. 

“She” is Julia Caldwell, a detective in Ewing Twp., Mercer County, and she did for a trapped dog what some of us could only dream of doing: saving a trapped animal from dying in a burning building. 

She was just passing by when she came upon the fire scene and quickly made her way to the window pointed out by a neighbor.  Inside that room, a dog was caged, but the residents weren’t home.

Caldwell got a colleague to boost her up so she could climb inside, open the cage, wrap the dog in a towel and hand the animal ou-t the window to those waiting.  The dog weighed 70 pounds, while Caldwell was 105 fit pounds of hero.  

With two dogs of her own at home, Caldwell said later she just couldn’t imagine losing her own house and everything in it.  “I knew I could get in that window,” she said later, “and I just thought, let me get in and get out.”

Done!

Update: The last I read in the Times of Trenton, Caldwell was still recovering at home.  Her 90-second rescue had caused damage to her respiratory tract, necessitating an induced coma and intubation.  Still suffering from reactive airway disease, or RAD, and a collarbone injury, she’s been cleared to return to desk duty.  Her pulmonologist must still OK her return to full duty.

Two crucial questions remain: (1) how is the rescued dog doing?  (2) will the dog’s family (please!) swear off leaving him or her in a cage?    

Now here’s the other side of the “hero for animals” coin:

A Personality Test  by Maureen Thorson In the orchard, I catch out of the corner of my eye a black rag snapped tight in the wind. Turns out to be a field mouse racing across fallen leaves tumbling in and out of pocks like a Marine recruit, all go!go!go! purely exposed to the eyes of hawks, foxes, whatever wants to eat her, which is everything. As I watch, she disappears into divots, reappears, slides, carroms, and slaloms, a little dark clown. I can't help it— I laugh at her pratfalls. I laugh at her fear. I laugh at her fear. I laugh as she runs for her life.  ("A Personality Test" by Maureen Thorson, from SHARE THE WEALTH, © 2022 Maureen Thorson.  Used by permission of Veliz Books.)

Birds: nectar & water  

A massive trumpet vine envelops the arbor on our deck, and the red-orange flowers (resembling trumpets, of all things!) are vividly beautiful.  Besides me, they have also attracted hummingbirds this summer, and I’ve been fascinated to watch them zipping all around the flowers.

One recent day near sunset, a “hummer” was right outside the deck door, treading air at high speed. That caused me to wonder if and how these birds decompress after that blurry movement goes on for so long. 

So I asked the naturalist-author of a terrific bird book, National Wildlife Federation’s World of Birds: A Beginner’s Guide (c. 2014), and Kim Kurki responded: “Hummingbirds will perch high in trees to rest. They do have very tiny nests, but won’t hang out in them after the young have left” (a practice that’s true of many birds).

High up in a nearby evergreen right now, at least one lounging hummingbird may be keeping an eye on our imposing trumpet vine.  

I’ve noticed that some people have decided bird baths, despite their name, are for flower display.  Providing water for parched birds on sizzling summer days?   Nah, anybody can do that!

Now I'm wondering whether those people got bird baths for exclusive use as shallow round flower vases.