My pet pigeon

This story does not have a happy ending (for the pigeon)!

As a kid, some of my earliest memories are all the wildlife hanging around our old family barn in St. Chrysostome, PEI. There were the expected wild barn cats, mice, and rats. But I also remember birds -- especially the barn swallows and pigeons. The barn swallows nested in the barn's horse stable section, and the pigeons were primarily up in the hayloft. I can imagine that the barn cats always looked for a lazy or injured bird. 

The memories and details of this event are mostly from my mother's story in later years. Apparently, a pigeon had flown into a barn window, and I had managed to capture the stunned bird before it could recover. Then, I tied a string to a pigeon's legs and declared it my pet. This idea of a pet bird might have come from my Meme. She kept a pet bird (budgie or canary) in a cage in our house. 

I don't remember how the pigeon behaved while I had its leg tied. But I suspect it didn't escape the attention of one of our barn cats. Anyway, we got called for lunch, and the pigeon had to stay outside. I tied the poor bird to the back of the tambour and went in for lunch. After lunch, when I remembered to check up on my pet pigeon, there wasn't too much left -- a string and some feathers. Somebody else had lunch!

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