Troy thought I was a dumb city slicker, but I knew better. I’d dealt with crabby cows and horses as well as a truly obstinate donkey. I could feed a couple of damn birds without incident.
Well, not without shedding some blood.
“Ow! You stupid damn bird.” I nearly yanked my hand back, but there was no way to give ground. “You’ll get your meal worms…”
Looking into the container, I questioned all of my life choices up until that point. Worms were important, vital even, but a pile of dead ones in the box was nausea inducing.
But I would not be deterred.
Scooping the spoon in, I placed a small pile in front of the other adult bird, because I’d be damned if I’d reward aggressive behaviour. The pecker leapt forward, wanting to claim them as its, but the bird I fed squawked and flapped its wings, warning it off. Then the worms were pecked up as fast as they could manage.
Right as a paw reached for one.
“Nope, no worms for kangaroos,” I told the joey as I put out a pile for the smaller bird. It stopped its incessant squawking which soothed my nerves exponentially. “But you…” Aggressive magpie and I squared off for a second, but I dumped a spoonfulin front of it. “You’ve got your worms. Now cut veggies for the possums.” Little claws swarmed across my shoulders as small furry bodies consulted with the board as well. “Pellets for kangaroos and Nugget.”
Another bunt in my ankle made clear he was well aware of this. The worm container was snapped closed as the bossy magpie went back for more and then it was shoved into the fridge. A box of vegetables was brought out and as I grabbed the knife, the possums landed on the table.
“You could…”
Waiting was not possible, it appeared. As soon as I cut one chunk, a possum was grabbing it and scurrying off. I kept on cutting until each critter had its paws occupied. I was supposed to write down everything they ate to ensure their nutritional needs were being met, but the animals weren’t prepared to wait. Kangaroo and wallaby paws clawed at the table as I grabbed the macropod pellets. Moving over to the feeder, I led a furry procession, the heads all dropping down into the trough as soon as the food hit the metal.
Only for Nugget to come barrelling forward.
The joeys were all quite large, so they could’ve easily booted him away, but God needed to give me the confidence of a young male wombat, as he muscled between the kangaroos, then started munching. Right as I went to put the pellets away and start the documentation, a truly horrendous sound cut through the air. Looking up, a sleepy eyed koala stared down at me.
“Fresh gum tree leaves!” I said, rushing back towards the door when I remembered Charlie’s lesson from yesterday.
Only to walk face first into one of her brothers.
“Whoa!” Bronson’s hands clapped down on my shoulders, holding me in place. “Where’s the fire?” He noted the feeding frenzy going on. “No, scratch that. I know now. Charlie left you to deal with these idiots on your own?”
“It’s fine,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Now I need some gum leaves?” With a blink, I looked around me. “What’s a gum tree?”
Why the hell hadn’t I asked that question yesterday? I could’ve called Charlie, but some part of me wanted to get this done myself.
“Eucalyptus,” he explained with a smile. “There’s a few growing in the rescue, but the koalas go through that many leaves, you have to supplement the food.”
“Oh, I know what those trees are. The government planted lots of them where I’m from.”
Pulling out the knife from my pocket, I was about to head towards the nearby trees, when I looked down to see it wasn’t the little pink one I’d packed in my luggage.
“Did Troy give you Granddad’s hunting knife?”
Bronson seemed inordinately amused by this.
“He let me borrow it when I was feeding the cattle,” I said.
“And you didn’t plunge it into his back repeatedly during the process?” He snorted and made a show of looking me up and down. “Maybe you Yanks are made of stronger stuff than us.”
“Yank?” I asked as we walked towards a tree. “What like a Yankee?” My brows wrinkled. “That’s a baseball team where I’m from.”
“Ahh…” Bronson scratched the back of his neck. “A lot of us in the British empire call Americans Yanks.”
“Really? No one’s called someone a Yankee since the War of Independence,” I replied.
“So you probably don’t want to know the old World War Two rhyming slang then,” he said with a grin, pointing to a nearby tree. “That’s a blue gum, because the foliage is a bluey grey. The koalas like eating them a lot, but only the young leaves.”
He plucked the knife from my grip, unfolding the blade, then cut down several branches of leaves. I picked them up and started dragging them back to the rescue.
