13. Little Baby Quail

Nora’s work day is often interrupted by her children (very rudely) entering her home office without knocking. But one day, the interruption led to a very sweet discovery in the backyard…

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INTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay.

I work from home. 

Well, I try to work from home. I spend a lot of time answering knocks on the door from children who want to know whether or not they can play Roblox, or who want me to know that whatever I hear from their sibling…it’s not the full story. 

These are my children, by the way, knocking on the door. Although sometimes it is the neighbor kids, just getting ahead of the story and making sure I know that the full story is not as simple as it seems. Yes, only one child is crying and possibly injured, but what I need to understand is that the crying child got what was coming to him after a series of betrayals and backstabbings, croses and double-crosses. This, by the way, is nearly always comes down to a conflict over a toy – and I use that phrase loosely because most of the time they’re arguing over something like a bucket they found in the backyard.

It’s hard not to get frustrated sometimes with these interruptions. My work is not exactly essential — I’m not in the middle of curing cancer or performing a brain surgery — but it would be nice to be able to get through more than just a few sentences before playing referee or having to open a pack of fruit snacks.

And it’s hard sometimes to not feel like I am the world’s worst mother, sitting in this room on the opposite side of a wall where all the life is happening, where all the joy and childhood is happening.

So there I am, hunched in front of my laptop screen, on a zoom call discussing a writing project with some of my colleagues, having — by the way — just noted that I had maaaaaybe five minutes left of work time — when the door opened.

No knock. 

My neck tensed. My eyes narrowed.

And my son said, “you need to come to the backyard NOW.”

Now?

NOW.

Why now?

Because, mom, there are baby quail. It’s an emergency. 

I had a choice here, I knew. I could continue my call and work on our very important deadline…or I could go to the backyard, and see about this quail emergency.

I told my colleagues I’d be right back, and I went to the backyard to see about this Quail emergency.

The emergency was…they were really cute.

Even a grown quail is cute, with their little attenae-like feather thingy on top of their head, but a baby quail? They look like something dreamed up by Jim Henson. They belong in a muppet movie, or on Fraggle Rock (the original). They were maybe three inches tall, little balls of fluff running in a straight line back and forth along our backyard wall. There were between 8-10 of them (it’s hard to tell when they’re so small and so fast), and they moved as though they were all connected by some invisible force, which I suppose they are. 

The actual emergency was that our chihuahua had been chasing these little baby quail, would probably have loved to had herself a little quail snack, and now that she’d been contained indoors these babies were desperate to be reunited with their mother, who had decided to put on her own oxygen mask first and run under our back gate to safety. 

My boys were worried that the babies would never find their mother, could not be convinced that many many years of evolution means that mama quail knew best, and she’d be back for her babies once we’d gone inside and the backyard was empty. So, in 108 degree heat and dressed in full body, synthetic unicorn pajamas, my sons herded these little birds out of our yard and under the gate, back to their mother.

Later, someone messaged me to say that when Quail have a home, they stay there. 

It’s been months since our family became essentially conservationist heroes and guess what? The quail are still here. They are our little buddies, our extended family, still running in a line through the backyard, all grown up. And now, when our Chihuahua wants to chase them, they’re big enough to fly over our back wall to safety. 

What I’m saying is…if you get the chance to see about some quail? Take it.

OUTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny. And this is It’s Going To Be Okay.

CREDITS