Fireweed is pregnant. Perhaps you think I am ridiculous. She most likely has a full stomache. Ah- but that is not the case. I know her. And she, my dears, is pregnant. I am terrified. Never once in my life have I even owned a dog that gave birth. I've handfed chicks from time to time. My hands have a special way with baby birds. Puppies hoard to my front door, hence my collection of abandon sled dogs. I used to take in kittens from the barns we resided near in Illinois. But I have never once been in the company of a freshly born anything. So obviously fish seem like an odd thing to start with. I am absent of any knowledge on the freshly hatched fry of blackfish. And I, at the precious age of nineteen, am not prepared to be a grandmother! I am merely a virgin myself and my child fish expects me to know the ways of her young ones? But, with shaky hands and a nervous breath I will try my best to ever so carefully learn the ways of young mother nature. And perhaps within the birth of Fireweed's children I will find a new sense of something within myself. Perhaps I'll find my way to care for something so precious with a level head and a calm being. Perhaps I'll find my inner mother of a newborn. How exciting would that be!
