But the one remaining chick is thriving.
There is no obvious way to know whether the chick is male or female. The inhabitants of the plot have many talents but Plover Sexing is not one of them. So Alf and Moira have named it Petrus-or-Petronella. Big name for such a small bird.
But it is growing fast. No longer is there a little ball of fluff sitting on Mom's feet and using her as an umbrella. Petrus/Petronella is expanding so fast it seems that he/she has already become a teenager. The symptoms are all there. Lanky and gangly, feathers all scruffy and untidy from fast growth, and bad attitude.
If Mom and Pop seemed a little desperate before, they are now a trifle manic. They all move together as a group with Mom and Pop protecting the flanks. PP (I have to shorten this name, my fingers will fall off if I have to type all that every time) dashes about and pecks insects out of the ground with the best of them. Mom and Pop have to scurry to keep up.
I was intrigued to see a segment on TV discussing the "Innsbruck Experiment". It seems that clever boffins have been playing with Quantum Mechanics again and have been able to produce "duplicated" photons. The concept is difficult to grasp. But no doubt in the next thirty years or so this will become old hat technology. But my mind is still boggling. This stuff is straight out of Hawking.
I was mulling over this concept of Quantised Storage. How do you know that the photon you are looking at is the right one? Or if you "store" one quantumly, How do you know where it has been put? Is it over there, or over there, or both? How do you back them up? Or do they back themselves up by providing as many copies of themselves in different places as you ask for?
I remember as a small boy reading about Lazers, then a brand new phenomenon, in Popular Mechanics or some such magazine. The thing that totally blew my mind was the holographic capabilities of polarised light. The fact that you could take a photograph of an object from the "front" and by viewing it through a lattice could see "behind" it and from all angles. It seemed that light was "bent", and more information was stored on the photographic film than seemed possible.
Today, of course, holographic images are old hat and commonplace. I have one on my credit card and even my software boxes have little holographic labels to prevent the baddies from making pirate copies.
Yesterdays science fiction has become todays throwaway technology.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt. When we throw away the cardboard box wrapper with the holographic image on it, we throw away our awareness of the vast intellectual breakthrough and researched knowledge that it represents. We stop looking. Or should I say, we stop seeing. The vastly complex is reduced to the merely trivial.
And of course Y2k is deceptively trivial. A child can understand it. A child can propose the solution. But implementing that solution is a huge challenge.
Perhaps that is why so many grownups are in denial. It seems that someone is playing a cheap trick on you. This thing is so simple it obviously cannot be a problem. So people doubt. And when in doubt, do nothing.
And now there is Beagie.
Beagie is a sixteen month old pure bred male Beagle with a mind of his own.
He was discovered by Jones a week or so ago in the long grass of the vacant lot next door.
From time to time Jones puts on his Sherlock Holmes hat and Detects. This is of course when he is not wearing his Savage Guard Dog hat, a very realistic impression with Teeth and Barks which puts the fear of God into Evildoers and anybody else passing by. Jones has many hats.
Anyhow, Beagie is a very fine specimen. He has beautiful long silky Tan ears, a classic Black and White and Tan coat, and a knowing expression.
Beagie and I share a little secret. He Loves Cheese.
Last week we read the little metal tag around Beagies collar, phoned the number we found there, and Beagie was fetched and taken off, gazing out of the car window at the passing scene.
Yesterday, Jones found him again. This time we were not quite as amused. He was full of ticks and fleas and he seemed nervous.
It now appears that the Lady who comes when we phone is Beagies' original owner and she had to move to a smaller home and give Beagie away. The Doberman Pinscher at the new place does not see eye to eye with Beagie. So Beagie goes walkabout.
Alf looked at Moira. Moira looked at Alf. So negotiations are under way. We should know today. I am holding thumbs.
Beagle is stalking something on the lawn. I must go and see what he is up to.