If you don't want to read about a sick bird, don't read this

Last week a friend of Mom's called her and said that her parakeet was looking funny, and asked if she could come check on it.When Mom arrived and looked at the bird, she assessed the situation and called a friend of ours to get a second opinion on his condition. He was tilted to his side, with one leg pulled into his feathers, which were alot more fluffy than is normal.Our friend said that he probably wouldn't live through the night, so Mom offered to take the bird home, so that Carolyn (the owner) wouldn't have to worry about him.
Because we already have Mac, and we weren't sure what was the cause of Jimmy's (the bird's) odd condition, we kept him outside in our garage with a fan. In the mornings we would take Jimmy's cage outside on our deck, so he could have fresh air and enjoy the other birds. Once a cardinal and a gold finch flew to his cage and freaked him out! Unlike our bird, Mac, Jimmy had never been out of his cage, and he lived with a older married couple, so he  wasn't very friendly, and was very scared around other people.
 Over the few days we had him (about four or five) he became increasingly more friendly, and would even chirp back when I whistled to him. I tried my very best to not become attached to him, knowing he wouldn't stick around very long but I did a a little, unfortunately.
Every day his leg grew more useless and shrunk up, until it was completely useless and he had to use an outstretched wing to keep himself upright. We didn't want to put him down so long as he was happy, and could get around in his cage, but by Monday he was looking really bad. We came into the garage and he was laying in the bottom of his cage breathing slowly and was very tired.
When I picked him up he barely even moved, and I wrapped him up in a towel and put him in a small box so he would stay warm. He was looking so very bad off that we didn't think he would live past a few more hours, and it was raining so hard that we couldn't go get what we needed to put him down.
Through the day he remained about the same, he would get small bursts of energy every 30 minutes or so, but then he would get even worse off than before.
After dinner I went to the garage to check on him, and picked him up and held him in my hand. I was talking and whistling to him when Mom came out to the garage, getting ready to go to the store since the rain had stopped. She came over to look at him and I then noticed his cere (the colored part above his beak) had tunred an odd dark color. Then he started shaking like he had a seizure, and tilted his dead up. Then all of a sudden he stopped moving, and I just kept staring at him, waiting for him to move. After a few seconds, I said "did he just die?" I whistled and touched him but he didn't respond. I felt really bad, but there was really nothing I could have done, he was old, and his time had come. So we wrapped him up and buried him in the backyard.
Although it was a little sad, he was really happy while he was here, and we knew we did everything we could have done. Before he died I took some pictures of him, so we could give one to his owner.
A day or two before Jimmy died Mom picked up two new parakeets for Carolyn and they are already adjusting to their new environment. They seem really sweet and will be good company for her. We got new ones for her so quickly, because her husband hadn't come back yet from recovering from  from being sick, and we didn't want Carolyn to be lonely.
Carolyn's birthday is on Friday, so Mom is going to give her a framed picture of Jimmy then.

Jimmy

These are the two new birds

I hope everyone has a good rest of the week!
~Kelsey

And I thought I had bad hair days...

Crazy isn't it!   That's a parakeet by the way, with a genetic mutation.

-Kelsey

Guess what is in our front yard...

Daffodils! Last year a gardening friend acquired hundreds of dollars worth of daffodil bulbs for free.(Due to an over-production) So we brought home many huge bags full and gave them to friends. (I think they were 25 pounds each) Last year when they came up they were absolutely gorgeous! Not only do we have the plain yellow ones (the only ones that have bloomed so far this year) but redish ones, pink, and white. All in different combinations~ white and pink, white and yellow, red and yellow, etc.

(I took the picture above the other day)

It has been wonderfully warm these last few days, so we have been opening up windows and doors. We even have been taking the plastic covering off of the garden to let sun in~now that it's come out. Yesterday Anna, Daniel and I went for a bike ride, since it was so warm. We took another one today, after I realized how out of shape I've gotten! All yesterday and today my legs felt like jello! Thankfully they're feeling more normal now! ;) Unfortunately it is also unbelievably windy, but it is still definitely better than dreary, cloudy and cold!

I also planted more vegetables in our garden this morning~lettuce and spinach. I keep hoping that maybe another rabbit will choose to make a nest under our spinach, like one did last year. We actually had two bunny nests in our yard, the other one under the roots of a strawberry plant. I had noticed a rabbit digging around in our strawberry bed, but hadn't thought anything of it. But the next day Mom was weeding, when she discovered a nest under a spinach plant. The rabbits in that nest were about six weeks old. So I then decided to check the strawberry bed just to make sure there wasn't a nest there also. And sure enough, there was! The babies were tiny and still pink, and it was obvious that they were only a day old. So we were able to see the older nest grow up and hop away, which they did about two weeks later. We actually brought some inside to play with, but only for a few minutes. One actually became a little tame, and would let us get quite close to it, even when it was almost full grown. But the next nest was moved by the mother into a unknown place (probably just a more quiet place in our yard) so we didn't get to see then grow up. It was quite a fun memory! Here are some pictures of the older nest~we never took the other bunnies out.

In the past we had caught a few bunnies of the same age (we didn't capture any that were older than eight weeks or so for fear of being bitten) but we had never found the nests with the rabbits still inside. Whenever we would find a baby rabbit in the yard, we would carefully surround it and grab it by it's scruff. If you haven't ever heard a rabbit scream when caught, I'll tell you this~ it is very odd to hear the scream of a frantic two year old coming from the mouth of a rabbit! ;) I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!

~Kelsey