(7:08 am Tue Nov 02, 2010)
(Major flashback to yesterday in story time.)
Baldy thought about it. "OK, I can play tug here I come, grab my tail."
From the beach, Mary saw Baldy turning back towards the gull. "Baldy! Een I tall you to leave that gully alone!" but Baldy did not listen to her.
Baldy circled the gull holding his tail at a low angle above the water. As he circled, the gull caught a hold of his tail and he headed for shore. (I will not explain the mechanics of the to you gentle reader. I will leave you to imagine that for yourself. Don't jump the gun and do too much assuming though. If you wait for some more evidence you may be able to eliminate some possibilities.)
"Thanks for the tow buddy, what's your name? They call me Cooper."
"OK, Cooper, they call me Baldy but I don't say why."
They reached the beach and Baldy walked right on out of the water, lowering his tail as he went until he felt Cooper let go. He did not even stop but kept on heading to Mary.
"Thanks again for the tow Baldy. I owe you one."
"Whatever Cooper. Just don't go messing with my fun next time please."
(7:21 am Tue Nov 02, 2010) 2342
(9:02 am Tue Nov 02, 2010)
Baldy ran up to Mary, "So you need some firewood, I'll get right on it, where do you want me to look first?"
"OK, OK, boy, you sure are excited. Barking up a storm. Why don't you go check down there to the west for some driftwood or some dead limbs while I dig a pit down there some?"
Baldy ran off to the west and Mary walked over, bent down and started digging in the sane with her hands. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the gull Baldy had towed to shore was just sitting at the edge of the water where the gentle waves washed up the slope. That was odd. To tell the truth, the whole thing was a bit odd come to think of it. First it had looked like Baldy wanted to eat the thing, then she had called him off and he had started to come to her, then he hard turned back to the gull and then... the first really odd bit, the gull had grabbed on to Baldy's tail and been towed to shore. And now, the second odd bit was that it was just sitting there. Doing nothing much while the other gulls were doing their gully things.
(9:02 am Tue Nov 02, 2010) 2566
(work time)
(2:09 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
(2:40 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
She finished up her fire pit by making a sand wall around the edge of the whole, stood up and brushed the sand off of her hands and her knees. The gull was still there at the water's edge. Pretty much in the same spot. She decided to go and see what was up with it.
Cooper saw Mary coming and began to worry a bit. He headed for the water, dragging his one wing behind him. He floated himself and began swimming out in an effort to put himself out of her reach.
Mary say the gull trying to avoid her. "Here gully, let me see what is wrong with you. I wont hurt you." The gull kept swimming away. She did not want to go in in her clothes and so she stopped at the shoreline and called to the gull repeatedly. Although he stopped swimming away once she stopped, he did not come closer but remained out of reach no matter how much she pleaded with him.
(2:40 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 2755
Mary heard Baldy barking and looked to see he had deposited a cache of firewood by her pit and was heading off to gather some more. She decided go and get the fire started and see about helping the gull later.
When Baldy returned with another load of wood he saw that Mary already had the fire going good and the weenies roasting on old metal hangar spits. They smelled fantastic. He lay down and put his head in her lap as she tended to things.
"So what happened to that poor gully baldy? You didn't hurt him did you? I didn't see you do anything to him."
"No, I didn't hurt him. He doesn't even know what hurt him. Something busted his wing while he was flying and he just sort of fell out of the sky."
"That's right sweetie, my Baldy wouldn't hurt a poor gully would he? That's a good boy Baldy."
"Well, I might hurt one, but I didn't hurt that one today."
"No he wouldn't hurt a fly, my Baldy. Good Baldy."
Baldy loved Mary but sometimes she drove him crazy with her refusal to listen to a word he said..
(3:03 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
(4:06 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
After lunch, Baldy decided to go for a little swim offshore to the west to see what he could see on the reef. Such as it was.
Mary made another effort at seeing if she could help the busted gull.
Baldy was having a blast when noticed this octopus sneaking along the bottom. Changing colours as he went. Baldy watched with interest at the thing slithered its way along and then up a rock ledge. Then he saw what the octopus was up to. There was a little damsel fish on the top of the rock looking confused. Baldy didn't like the looks of things. He popped up for a quick, deep breath and then headed down. Making a beeline to put himself between the octopus and the little fish.
(4:06 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 3100
It took a good while, but Mary kept talking and soothing and she finally managed to get the gull to stay still long enough to let her come close and pick it up and examine it.
She took it back to her umbrella and sat down with it and gently looked it over. The only thing she found was a small round hole in one wing. The odd thing was that there was no bleeding. The hole seemed to be cauterized. As if it ad been made with a red hot bolt from some midieval cross bow. Go figure. There didn't look to be much she could do to help with that so she set him up on the top of her umbrella and picked up her book, a puzzled look on her face.
(4:28 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
Not long after that, Baldy came trotting up the sand with something brown in his mouth. He came and dropped it by the fire and looked up to see Cooper on top of the umbrella. "What are you doing up there gully?"
"I don't know. Your friend picked me up and brought me up this way. She looked at my wing and then put me up here. So here I am. Just hanging I guess. What is that you have there?"
"Some octopus that was bothering this cute little damsel fish named Nutmeg. I didn't feel like letting him bother her so I guess I did something about it. Are you hungry? Want some?"
"You know, I am a bit peckish, I think I will try some," said Cooper, hopping down from the umbrella to the sand of Saunders beach.
(4:35 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 3390
(7:07 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
Cooper began pecking at the octopus and before he had managed to get the first bite down the attack occurred. Gulls from nowhere appeared and began trying to fly off with it.
Baldy yelled at them to clear off and so did Mary, flicking her towel at them to boot. The gulls were not about to give up however and they managed to get the eight armed feast airborne before Mary beat them back and put a plastic pail down over it to keep them off. "Greedy little friends you have there Buster," she said.
"Hey my name is Cooper, not Buster. Baldy, tell her my name is Cooper."
"I'll try, but she hardly ever listens to me about details. Mary, this gully here is Cooper."
"Well, isn't that nice, my B boys. Baldy and Buster."
"See that I mean?" said Baldy.
"Well how come she gets your name right then?"
"She should get it right, she gave it to me. I don't really remember what I went by before she rescued me years ago."
(7:18 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 3578
"She rescued you too?"
"Now just wait a minute gully, who rescued you? Seems to me I rescued you dude."
"All you did is tow me to sure. Now, I appreciate that, don't get me wrong, I do, but you just left me down there at the water's edge. She is the one who was concerned enough for me to come down and calm me down and bring me up here to see what was wrong with me."
"Oh, yeah! And who brought you some lunch?"
"You brought that for me? I didn't know you had caught it for my lunch, I thought you were out playing white knight for some damsel fish in distress!"
"Damsel fish in distress... Oh oh, that's a good one Cooper. Damsel fish in distress... Heh, heh. Anyway, I did catch it and I did bring it back here and I did offer you some of it for lunch. Enough said."
(7:30 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010)
"OK, enough said. Now, how am I going to get to eat some?"
"I figure Mary will think of something for you soon."
It turned out Baldy was right. Mary got out her big fish knife and lifted the pail and cut an arm off before putting the pail back over Baldy's catch. She laid the arm down along a piece of driftwood that Baldy had brought back that hadn't made it into the fire just yet. She cut it into chunks about a half inch in length and began to feed them one at a time to Cooper / Buster. "Here you go Buster, does this taste good?"
Cooper / Buster tucked in with a will. He soon finished off the arm and was wanting more. Mary noticed this but decided she should not over feed him in his injured state. "What are we going to do with you Buster? I don't think we can leave you here alone to fend for yourself while you are injured like this. I think you will have to go home with us."
(7:30 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 3927
Baldy had noticed that the swells had been growing during lunch and decided to go in and do a little body surfing before it was time to head home. "Mary, I am going to go in again, didn't you want to go in today? he said before running down and diving in.
"Yes, I guess I have put it off long enough Baldy, I did come here to go in for my health after all."
Mary got up and tidied her stuff away a bit. Then she lifted Cooper / Buster up to the umbrella again.
(8:03 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 4030
She went down to the water and dipped her toes in. Well she tried to but the waves had grown big enough that a little dip was not on the board. The water was too cool for her liking and it washed around her legs. Now she wished she had gone in as soon as she had arrived while things were still calmer. Anyway, she had come to go in and go in she would.
A big one was rolling in so she ducked under and pushed off the bottom heading out deeper. She figured she would tread water for about five or ten minutes and then back in. Ten minutes of gargling and swishing should help a good bit. Better than five minutes but could she last? She was not much of a swimmer. She laughed, "At least I am an OK floater hey Baldy?"
Baldy did not pay her much attention, he was too busy enjoying his body surfing. What a blast. He really need to try and sneak over the bridge and onto the beach over on P.I. some day soon when the swells were running. That would be a rush.
Mary managed to last her ten minutes and headed in. Timing it so that she made it up the beach between waves. "Come in soon Baldy. I want to head home before too long."
Baldy heard her and decided to make to more passes and then call it a day. He dog paddled in circles looking for a big one. He let several pretty good ones pass him by before seeing one on the way that he liked. As it got near he turned towards the shore and started to paddle like mad.
Swoosh! Off like a freight train! What a blast!
Just as he was nearing the beach and about to pull out to go out for another run, something hit him on the head. Hard! "Ow!"
"What is it Baldy?" called Mary?
"Ow! Something hit me on the head! What was it?" Baldy stood in the wash looking around to see what he could see.
It took him a while but he finally spotted something green in the white foam. He rand down and saw that it was a bottle of some sort and grabbed it in his mouth and took it up to Mary. "Hey Mary, take a look at this. I think this is what hit me. I think there is something in it. Can you get it out?" He dropped the bottle at her feet.
(8:03 pm Tue Nov 02, 2010) 4460
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