Happy Days!

Happy Birthday Dad!















Happy 5th Birthday, Jaiden!



















Happy 2nd Bunniversary, JoJo!




I love you all!

Poison

Some evil bastard in my neighborhood has put out rat poison.

PAWS called me and I found out about the fate of my squirrel. She was blind and slowly and painfully dying from eating rat poison. Thankfully, PAWS was able to put her out of her misery before dying got a lot worse. Now I'm worried about my Bijou, all the neighborhood wildlife, and people's pets.

Because of this, I did a little research, and it turns out that just weeks ago the EPA laid down the law on distribution of rat poison. Unfortunately, rat poison manufacturers have 3 years to comply.

I'm sad and angry. And now Bijou wants to go out into the sunshine and I can't let her.

When Squirrels Attack

I know I don't blog much these days, but life has been just rollin' along. Today was exciting though! This afternoon I noticed a very tired squirrel in our back yard. He was crouching motionless on the ground with his head down and his cute little nose touching the ground. He looked very healthy with a nice fur coat and bushy tail, but I have never seen a tired squirrel before. I got on a pair of gloves and a pet carrier, and these are the results:









Squirrel: Safe in the carrier.
Julia: Not so safe with the gloves.

I was able to walk right up to Mr. Squirrel and grab him, which proved he really was ill. But then he perked right up. He screamed. He bit me. I screamed. I dropped him. Then I persevered and nabbed him again a little closer to his head and shoved him into the pet carrier. He screamed and growled again, threw his little body against the bars, and then huddled in the back. That pretty much was the end of his efforts, though he growled again at Michael when Michael moved the carrier a bit.

Luckily, squirrels rarely are rabid and especially not in Seattle. Also, I'm up on my tetanus. I took Mr. S to PAWS, and hopefully they will be able to do something for him. The last critter I brought them, a mountain beaver, didn't do so well. The mountain beaver had baylis and was put down.

In other news, Fiddle Tunes is coming up! I'm looking forward to a week of music, partying, dancing, and banjo larnin'. Last year I had a blast. I had a disappointment recently, so as a consolation prize, I bought myself a Tascam digital audio recorder. No more low quality cassette recorder, piles of cassettes, bags of batteries, and endless hours sucking the cassettes into my computer. Yay! I feel so 21st century.

We also got a new dishwasher, but that's not so exciting. Just convenient!

Julie and Moondog

I just finished reading Julie Andrews' memoir Home. I really love Julie Andrews, and the book was a great read. One of the most interesting things I learned was that Julie Andrews' first album was a joint venture with Moondog! What a combo! In 1957 they collaborated on a recording of children's songs called "Tell it again" - Songs of Sense and Nonsense. This album seems to be out of print, but the songs are included on Julie Andrews' album Once Upon a Time. I'm gonna be gettin' me some of that.