Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Jeep is fine. The vet said she definitely needed to come in given the symptoms, but her feeling better this morning seems to be because she IS better. Yay. I hate having a sick pet. She was REALLY not feeling very well last night. The only bad news about this is that she peed all over the inside of the bag I brought her in (she doesn’t like cat carriers and is happiest in a little dark cave, e.g. a bag with only a little open above her head). I scrubbed the inside of the bag out when I got home, then inverted it to air dry on the porch. I haven’t spent any time out there since the whole bird situation, but I’m almost glad Jeep had her nervous accident.

When I got out on the porch, there were three birds tweeting and flying around overhead. It was clearly the three baby birds that remained from the nest. I had only seen two in my photograph, so finding three was a treat. What transpired was mostly captured on film. It’s a crazy, frenetic film, and I swear one longish clip didn’t make it on to the camera – probably because the batteries were dying. But I think you’ll like this, especially if you were reading about the ones that didn’t make it last weekend. I can’t believe how fast they grew! Mom said it was probably because of the spaghetti!

Baby Birds Leave the Nest and Go Off Into the World! from abbyladybug on Vimeo

Now the nest is empty!

And guess how much I’ve studied today. 🙁

She’s better but still not great. We’re off to the vet.

TONS of pictures from the weekend online now. I have to stop taking so many. The editing takes up too much of my time. Saturday. Sunday.

I arrived home from a wonderful day of adventures, and I found myself one sick little kitty cat. Without going into too much gory detail, I will say that the first thing I did was to put Jeep and Maggie into my bedroom while I picked up several offending items with paper towels, then I vacuumed and spot-wetvacked everything that needed it. Jeep isn’t happy. I will have to bring her in to the vet tomorrow, first thing. The plan was to study, but I’ve been playing nurse to Jeep and editing pictures. More about said adventures and the health of my sweetie girl tomorrow. If you’re bored, I’ve started uploading pictures already.

I’m headed out to a DVD night tonight with friends, and I decided to make something I’ve always wanted to try, pavlova (you excited, Jane?!). This is my first solo meringue attempt. I called mom first because I remember my parents making them when I was a kid. They used to use brown paper bags as the base. I have vivid memories of licking the bags once the meringues were ready until my tongue bled! Mom suggested that I crank up the air conditioning and preheat the oven with the door open so the place could really dry out. As a result, the climate in here was a bit odd: pockets of hot and cold and DEFINITELY dry (Princess and the Pea here can always tell – pass the lotion!). I read up on meringue-making and the proper care and feeding of egg whites. While I think I did it all to the letter, the meringue is clearly very deflated in the middle. I hope it’s still good.

Click the picture to see the whole photoset on Flickr

This morning, I heard momma bird tweeting on the porch, so I peeked out and watched and saw her fly up to the light fixture in the ceiling, then disappear! I couldn’t figure out where she’d gone. Later, when I came back home from the gym, I inspected further and made a discovery:

There is little space above the light with a nest! If I’d known where to put them on Saturday, maybe they would have made it (or maybe not). I just had no idea that space was even there. I climbed up on the side of this piece of furniture I have out there and took a few fast pictures, one with a flash for detail. If you look closely, I think that it’s clear that there are two more baby birds. Maybe I should make some more spaghetti to ensure their healthy growth!

Closer view: