Tenacity
Bernadette watches from the birdbath.
She calls out to Dan who wrings his paws under the daylily. “What’s the twoleg doing?”
“Dunno. Dunno. Dunno,” he chatters, “but I don’t like the looks of it.”
The twoleg secures a Slinky® toy to the rodent’s birdseed buffet line with a zip tie, dusts her hands, and pats herself on the back. “Take that!” she calls to the fourlegs.
The hours until sunset are spent surveilling and scheming.
“We’ll sleep on it,” Dan suggests.
“Good idea,” Bernadette closes her eyes and drifts into dreams of sunflower seeds.
Up with the sun, Dan stands below his breakfast, lunch… dinner. He decides to go for it. He shimmies underneath the new contraption and takes hold of the shepherd’s staff. He ascends easily, but finds the exit tricky. The shiny, silver contraption does not hold still! He slides down the pole to reassess.
Bernadette sashays out from under the boxwood. “I’m gonna have a go.” She shimmies, climbs, and paws the bouncy gizmo with a rear leg. “Child’s play!” she cries as she launches herself though a separation between the bars. She grasps the feeder’s metal mesh. “C’mon Dan. If I can do it, you can too.”
Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.
~Leonardo da Vinci