Les Oiseaux qui Volent
Posted on 03. Jul, 2008 by Laura-Jane - Whimfield in Inspirations, Outdoors, Prince Edward Island
Bird one
This morning, while outside in our yard, I was witness to the sweetest small bird hitting our kitchen window while it was flying at full speed. It landed head-down into the grass, and lay there, frozen, with its eyes alert and blinking. I didn’t know what to do or how to help, so I just busied myself around the yard, staying far away but keeping a worried eye on the bird. It stayed motionless and silent for about twenty minutes, and then suddenly it flew away.
Bird two
Later in the afternoon, on the very same day, we were outside installing some scaffolding in the same area near the house. Something caught my attention, and I glanced into our kitchen through the window, wherein I noticed that there was a bird flying around inside our kitchen; it was flapping against the closed window, trying to get out!
Cameron was twenty-feet up in the sky on top of the scaffolding, so I–being on the ground–rushed inside to try to gallantly herd the poor trapped bird out of the house. I gladly rose to the challenge and ran into the kitchen, at which point I was once again reminded that I am the last person that should be involved in an emergency situation, especially when it involves moving, fluttering, animals.
Cameron, twenty-feet up on scaffolding, could see into the kitchen and was yelling encouragement and ideas, such as “Just direct the bird towards the door!”, and “Use your hands!” More commentary followed: “Laura-Jane, do something!”, and then “Hello?? Are you going to do something?” He said.
In my defense, I was doing something. Even though it looked like I was just standing in the middle of the kitchen looking frightened and making small gestures towards the general vicinity of the bird, I was trying to think! I was trying to plan! I was trying to come up with a concrete, fail-safe strategy! I was evaluating the options!
So, while Cameron climbed down the seventeen rungs of scaffolding, walked around the entire house, came up into the kitchen, bypassed me (as I stood as frozen as the window-stunned bird from this morning), gently seized the bird in his hands, and let it fly out the door like that dove from “Touched by an Angel”, I really was doing something. I swear.
Sayantanee from India
Jul 3rd, 2008
Awesome! If you dont mind a question, when’s your birthday? And are you on orkut?
Sayantanee from India
Jul 3rd, 2008
ALso can you give me direct contact of some job consultant for engineers in PEI?
Who also happens to deal with jobs for computer engineers!
And one query…. Can you tell me PEI still being rural community basically, what is the feeling there towards non-white skin folks? What is the racial discrimination factor at work there? I would greatly appreciate an honest answer to this one.
Laura-Jane
Jul 3rd, 2008
Hello Sayantanee,
I’d be happy to help direct you to some companies, because I know that there are a lot of technical jobs to be had here. Just to help me help you, what exactly is a computer engineer, do you write code or are you more of a hardware/mechanical engineer type?
Regarding moving here, first I have to direct you to a GREAT forum full of PEI people called PEI talk. If you are seriously interested in perhaps moving here, you should definitely take a good look through this site and maybe even post some questions for response.
Re: discrimination, I have heard rumours that it can be difficult to gain employment if you are an “outsider” (not born on the Island), regardless of ethnicity. However, I think that this rumour–if it is true, which I am not sure of–pertains more to the lower paying jobs. There is a lot of demand for employees in the technical industries, so I don’t imagine that this discrimination would exist in the higher-skilled jobs (if it exists at all).
Re: ethnicity and skin colour, the capital, Charlottetown, appears to be a quite multi-cultural city with people of a lot of different ethnicities. However, I would definitely say that in the outlying communities almost everyone you see is Caucasian. I haven’t had ANY exposure to any unpleasant racially-biased comments or situations, but then again we rarely leave the house so I am not the best person to answer this question. The general tone of the people in our area is “rural”, I suppose, but we’ve only experienced the positive stereotypes–friendly, welcoming, curious, generous. Also, the Island is a tourist mecca and there are many people from all over the world who vacation here or own summer homes here, so the true Islanders seem accustomed to new faces.
I must stress that you check out PEI talk and post some questions there. I am sure that the members there would provide you with lots of info.
Andrea >> Become a consultant
Jul 3rd, 2008
I wouldn’t have figured you for Touched by an Angel. lol
Laura-Jane
Jul 3rd, 2008
Andrea, I think I’ll take that as a compliment, lol. Yes, unfortunately, there is more to me than meets the eye.
Andy Collier
Jul 7th, 2008
We had a bird stuck in our attic space just before we insulated, unfortunately there was no way to shoo it out so we left in to it’s own devices to get out, which it did. At least we think it did, we have two cats living in the house but we didn’t see a pile of feathers anywhere!
Hélène
Jul 8th, 2008
Hello Laura-Jane,
I love your blog. My husband and I read it now…he was born on the Island and I have kidnapped him to Quebec but I am bound to return him soon (no ransom involved unfortunately).
Your house project really does interest me. It is a beautiful home. I love this part of the island as well.
We are also dreaming of a house for our retirement days and we may try to purchase one this summer (a century home). I wish I could move to the island right away but I still have to teach a bit longer. I would like to use your blog in my class next year if you don’t mind…you write so well and as a second language teacher (ESL) I like to use vivid examples. I think my students would like to write a blog and use a video the way you did when you taught us how to create a carpet. If I get my dream house I will make one for sure. You are an excellent teacher :)
Keep writing..you are helping us keep our dream alive even if we are not so young anymore. I fell in love with the island when I was 17 and I’ve returned every summer. I would love to live there even if I’m from away.
You could modify your title for this entry; to ( Les oiseaux qui volent ) if you want it in perfect french. I hope you will forgive me for my grammatical advice… I guess it actually gave me an excuse to write to you and tell you that you have a french speaking fan among your readers. :)
Laura-Jane
Jul 8th, 2008
Hello Hélène!
Firstly, thank you! I dislike incorrect grammar when it is written by me, so I thank you for the correction. :) I took some French Immersion in school, and learned how to SPEAK quite a bit of basic French, but I swear that my knowledge of grammar, tense, and verb rules is somehow non-existent, so thank you. Corrections are always welcome.
I am sure that you know PEI better than we, so I won’t sing its praises to someone who already knows them, I will just say that if you are dreaming of it I am sure it will happen if you really want it to.
Of course, I would be gleeful/flattered/ecstatic if you would use any portion of this page in your ESL class! If you do, I would love to know about it.
Thank you for reading and taking the time to write!
Laura-Jane
alure
Jul 11th, 2008
oh my GOD! i would have panicked if i had seen a bird inside my house and it would have been the LAST place i would have gone! you are my hero laura-jane, just for the fact that you went INSIDE where a BIRD was trapped.
your house looks AWESOME! and you look HOT!
Laura-Jane
Jul 14th, 2008
Hello Alure! Are you still blogging? I am completely out of touch with all Diaryland bloggers from the days of yore. If you are still writing, please send me your blog’s address, I look forward to catching up.