A good friend was having some troubles in her life, and before she could quite figure out how to stop it some guppies in her small tank started giving birth to babies. Soon, there were 50 or 60 of them and her tank was out of control and turning cloudy.

She is a passionate animal lover and she couldn’t bear to get rid of them herself or send them anyplace that would harm them, feed them to fish or turtles, or take poor care of them

She has had a rough time over the past few weeks and simply couldn’t handle them. So I suggested to her and to Maria that we go to her house – she lives a couple of hours away – and get the babies out of her two tanks and find a home for them.

We both felt we really needed to get those babies out of there, to relieve our friend, and to find a good place for them. It just wasn’t something she could handle at the moment, and she had very good reason.

She was grateful for this offer – she never asks for help – and Maria agreed it was a good idea. I’ve had a lot of experience in my life with getting fish out of tanks of water.

Today, my Daily Good calendar only had one thing – buying dinner for the Mansion aides on the night shift. I had some extra time.

So we went on a baby guppie rescue mission, a new chapter in my do-gooding work, and a new experience for Maria. She loves her friend early and was eager to join in.

During the week I made calls to the fish stores and aquariums. Some didn’t have room, some didn’t want so many babies, some wouldn’t promise not to feed them to turtles. Others were still reeling from the pandemic.

This would be an all-day rescue mission, her house was not close to the Petco we plotted the trip and cleared the decks.

After a few calls, I had found Tyler at a nearby Petco, and he said he would be eager to get them, he had an empty tank and the store was donating some fish in exchange for people’s donations to animal rescue groups.

I know Tyler well, he is a true fish lover and he promised to take good care of them. Our friend hated to see them go but knew it was best.

We drove to our friend’s, spent a half-hour collecting the babies, had lunch with our friend, and put them in a big bucket with water and air holes. We headed for the Petco an hour and seventeen minutes away.

I called ahead and Tyler was waiting for us with a big and clean tank. He carefully collected the babies and a few mothers into plastic bags, filled them with water, and put them in the tank to acclimate.

He was very happy to get them, and we felt quite solid about where they had done. So was our friend, she was relived. It was the kind of animal rescue I might have laughed at once, and Maria and I did do some laughing about it.

But it felt very good to me, to both of us. And it helped a precious friend more than I might have imagined. We celebrated by getting some ice cream on the way home.

I’m not riding my bike tonight, I’m giving my legs a break. I’ll be out there in the morning.