All of a sudden, Aaron, the mourning dove landed on Nogdorf’s shoulder, crying. “Aaron, what is the matter? Are you hurt?” Nogdorf asked.

  “No, it is my wife, Angelica. She flew into an old barbed wire fence and has ripped open a large gash on her chest and is bleeding terribly. Please come help her. I couldn’t bear to see her die.”

  Nogdorf motioned to Lester. Quickly, let’s follow Aaron.”

  Aaron flew fast and they tried to keep up. He had to keep circling back to show them the way. As they rushed through the forest, Nogdorf took the time to bend over and pick some greenery. They continued walking and half running. He said to Lester, “ watch for roses in bloom.”

  Lester thought that was a strange request, but figured Nogdorf wanted to take the hurt dove a bouquet. He had hopped a little ahead of Nogdorf and said, “Here is a wild rose bush, Nogdorf.”

  Without further ado, Nogdorf carefully pulled the petals off of ten roses and shoved them into his pocket and hurried behind the dove.

  When they got to where Angelica was resting on a leaf, Nogdorf told Lester to find some kind of container and bring him water from a nearby stream. Lester found an old shoe that had been discarded in the woods, filled it with water and brought it to Nogdorf. It was leaking, but contained enough water when he got back for Nogdorf to wash out the deep wound.

  “Pay close attention, Lester. This could easily stand to have ten stitches, but since neither of us can perform that kind of magic, this will have to do. This is less painful and invasive, too. I picked yarrow leaves and you found rose petals. I will lay a yarrow leaf in the wound, then place rose petals for the next layer, then another yarrow leaf and continue alternating until the wound is full. This will stop the bleeding and help the blood to clot. It is an antiseptic and an anti-inflammatory.”

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  “Now, Aaron, please keep an eye on her. We will find some white willow, so that we can make her a tea out of the bark. That will help with the pain.” As they walked toward the river to where Nogdorf knew the white willows were, he asked Lester if he had any questions.”

  “Yes, I sure do. Is this my lesson for the day and does that work for all animals or only birds?

  Also, you said to use fresh herbs. What do you do in the winter when the herbs are not available?” Lester said in a rush.

  “This was not the lesson I had planned for the day, but works splendidly, “ Nogdorf said, as he put water on to boil for the dove’s tea. After steeping for 5 minutes, Nogdorf poured the tea into the well-used old shoe to cool and set it before the bird. “You want to be careful not to give it to her too hot, or she will get burned, which defeats our goal of calming her pain. Also, if the creature gets burned, they will most likely not try the tea again, even after it has cooled. It’s better to do things right the first time, even if it is a little bit slow.”

  Lester was taking notes as fast as his paws could write. Unbeknownst to him, there were two crafty eyes watching him from a nearby thicket. The red fox, Lucent, thought to himself, “Yes, this herbal wizard rabbit has to go. That dove was my meal for the morning, but he got to her first and has got her healing. The man wizard has put her up in her nest in the tree, where I can’t reach her. This is not going to work for me. I depend on animals who have gotten hurt for my food and if I don’t get rid of the rabbit, it will greatly cut down on my food source.” He slunk

  off into the woods to make a plan.