Hi, my dear friends!
I have so much to tell you... During the occupation, I did not have such an opportunity. The rare messages I have been able to send to my daughter just to tell you that we are alive are very few.
Animals and war is a very heavy topic. Like children, they are helpless in the face of a huge disaster that has befallen our country. We do our best to help them, but we are not omnipotent..
Today I want to talk about our storks. At the beginning of the war there were eleven. Only two survived...
When it became known that we were surrounded by Russian fascist troops and all opportunities to get food were completely cut off, I was most afraid that animals and birds would starve. And I was also afraid that they would simply shoot my animals, as they did in neighboring villages. I hid my animals every time the Russian tanks came.
But when the Russian troops started bombing the towns around our village - Borodianka, Bucha, Irpin, Gostomel, Makarov... the hell for wild birds began. They can't stand explosions... I talked about this many times when I explained the danger to birds of New Year's fireworks. But now things were much worse. The earth was trembling... My house was literally bouncing and I'm still surprised that it didn't spit out all the windows, and the roof didn't throw off the tiles like a snake throw off old skin.
Almost every morning I woke up and buried my birds... One by one... It ended pretty quickly... The stork is a very revered bird in my country, a symbol, we always look forward to their arrival in the spring. It seemed to me that with every stork I was burying a piece of our peaceful life, of our soul...
Those photos that you see above are pre-war photos. This is how they looked.
When the Ukrainian army drove the Russian troops away from Kyiv, we sent my bus for dog and cat food. But storks need specific food. Therefore, it was decided to evacuate the two remaining live birds to Rivne.
Exhausted, weak, but alive, they were taken to a bird shelter run by a good friend of mine.
They'll be safe there and maybe come back to me when this is over. But for now, I can't guarantee their safety here. Besides, it will be a long time before I can deliver food for the storks here, all logistical connections are now broken. In addition, this food cannot be stored, it needs cold, and our prospects for electricity in the coming month remain elusive, because the power lines leading to us have been blown up.
Love you all
