Winter is just about over when you hit March. Oh, there might be a snow storm or two, but they are never taken seriously. The warm weather is right around the corner . . . and everybody knows it.
Mom, Dad, and the girls are in the backyard . . . taking down the bird feeders. Over the winter a nice variety of birds visited their feeding station.
There were buntings, chickadees (Ashley’s favorite), grosbeaks, finches, cardinals (Erin’s favorite), juncos, warblers (Tammy’s favorite), waxwings, kinglets, and swallows. Binoculars . . . three pairs of binoculars . . . and a birding book were kept on a table near the back sliding glass door, so that . . . in addition to helping the birds make it through a winter . . . some fun learning was enjoyed as well.
The feeders . . . and squirrel baffles . . . are brought inside where they are washed, dried, and stored away. The conversation, generally, is about their prank scheme . . . or rather the uncertainty of it. The end of the school year is fast approaching and they haven’t come up with an excellent prank idea yet.
Mom calls for a special family meeting. Dad makes milkshakes and everyone convenes in the living room. The brainstorming that follows produces some interesting possibilities. They could mail funny greeting cards (unsigned) to all the teachers, or they could wrap ribbons all the way around the school building, or they could dip their bare feet in white paint and then make foot prints on the sidewalk in front of the school. But none of these ideas ring a bell in them, and they now begin to entertain the likelihood that a prank . . . with their names forever attached to it . . . will never make it into the local folklore.