Hi All! I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted!
As many of you know, I had a hysterectomy at the end of April. My recovery was miraculous; I feel WONDERFUL!! For the first two months or so after surgery, my energy level was through the roof. I don't know why, but I felt like a kid again! To celebrate my feeling of youth, vibrancy, and just the pure joy of feeling alive, I did this on June 16th:
Which turned into this:
About six weeks later, the color had started to fade a little bit so I went for a more "normal" look:
A couple weeks before the above happened, Zach and I became the proud parronts of a handicapped budgie, who we named Phoenix. We had known about "Miss Handicapped Budgie" for about a year and a half. Here's the story:
My friend Katy is a vet tech at our veterinarian's clinic, but I met her about 14 years ago. She was one of my "mentors" when I first had birds. She has a special interest, and training, in avian medicine.
About two years ago, a man called the clinic because his cat had attacked a bird. He didn't know anything about birds, but he put it in a box and gave it some seed and water. He had had the little bird for two days, and it was alive but couldn't walk or fly. So, they said to bring it in and they would see what they could do (have I mentioned how much I love my vet?? LOL). Needless to say, they were amazed that the bird had survived for two days, with no treatment, after getting attacked by a cat.
They knew as soon as they saw her that she would need 24 hour care, so Katy agreed to take her home. She put her through what she called "Katy's Cruel Internment Camp", which involved daily medicine and physical therapy. She would massage her legs, and add increasing amounts of manipulation to the regimen. Miss Handicapped Budgie didn't like Katy very much. LOL
Her rehab took a little more than six months, and at the end she was able to toddle around, climb, perch, and make attempts to fly. Since Miss Budgie didn't like Katy, Katy wanted to do her a favor and place her in a home with someone who understood her issues and knew when a vet visit may be necessary.
About a year and a half ago Katy approached me about possibly taking her in. At that time, we were over our heads with animals (we had I think 8 or 9 birds at the time) and couldn't do it. About 8 months later she asked again. We still couldn't do it. In March, Katy called me in desperation, because she was heavily pregnant and was having a hard time keeping up with all of her birds, and she knew that once her baby was born she would have even less time. Miss Budgie didn't like her, anyway, so she was the one who could go to a new home. I went to meet her, and she pretty much immediately bonded to me. The problem was, I knew that I would be having surgery sometime in the near future, but it hadn't been scheduled yet. A couple weeks later, I took Zach to meet her. Miss Budgie liked him almost as much as she liked me. It would be a good fit. At that point, my surgery had been scheduled, so we made arrangements for me to call Katy as soon as I felt able to help take care of the birds. So, Miss Handicapped Budgie came to live with us on May 31st. Since she had survived (and thrived) after what she had been through, we named her Phoenix...the bird who rises from the ashes.
She is just adorable. She's plucky (not a plucker), cheeky, sweet, affectionate, bossy, playful....everything good about budgies.
She LOVES baths from the spray bottle (on a fine mist, of course). She fluffs her feathers, flaps her wings, and just goes to town, having fun. So cute!!!
Let's see....Taz, Chewy, Bilbo, Diablo, Cami, and all (well, most) of our aquatic friends are well....our ancient betta died (I think s/he was about 5 years old) so we bought a new tank and a new betta. I'll take a picture and post it in a bit. Our newt is still alive, I don't know how....we were talking the other day and he has to be close to 20 years old.
My amazing, beautiful 14 year old niece recently went to Oklahoma City to compete in this year's Canoe/Kayak Sprint Nationals (remember the play by play from last year?
). She made the finals in every single one of her races, and in all of her K2 (two person kayak) events she and her partner won medals - three gold and one bronze. In their K4 (4 person kayak) event they won gold. Overall, the team brought home 23 medals. Yay!!!!!
I think that's all the news I have for now....
