Sorry for the week-long absence, gang.
We went away to visit friends over St. Patricks day weekend. They
neglected to tell us all their kids were sick until we got there. Came
home, spent two days working on a project--had no time to log on.
THEN, on the first day of spring, a big snow/sleet storm hit, and we
spent two days (actually 36 hours) with no power--and no heat (in 5
degree weather). We couldn't evacuate the birds, because every place I
COULD have taken 15 birds and a big dog was also without power and heat.
So we had to stay here and try to keep'em warm.
We all survived, but it got chilly in here. My birds are used to a
fairly constant 70F. It went down to 54 F in the basement at the lowest
point before power was restored. The birds spent two days under all the
spare blankets in the house.
Fortunately our gas stove still worked. We baked things constantly to
keep the house as warm as we could. I know, bad bird mommy, carbon
monoxide danger and all that -- we just had no other choice. We don't
have a generator, and couldn't even get out to get one--the first day,
the roads were too bad (and none of the stores had power either!). We
did have a few windows cracked open to vent, and opened the attic door a
bit to vent upward. We boiled a lot of water, and set covered pans of
water in the bird rooms to radiate a little extra heat in there.
When the power was finally restored, and we could remove those blankets
from the cages, everybody screamed and sang for 9 hours straight!
Of course, during the outage, I came down with the chest cold my
friends' kids had generously shared with me. So the last 3 days I've
been too miserable to compute (lean way back from your screen so you
don't catch this--it's NOT fun!).
Anyway, when I finally logged on today, there were only 24 new messages
for one week of Parrots. I KNOW there's usually more mail than that out
here. So, to end a long story, if you sent me important mail that has
gone unanswered, please resend it.
--Kathy
 * SLMR 2.1a * Whales are mammals. Mammals have hair. Shave the whales!
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