Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Pet Saga

Our beloved family cat, Simon, went missing two weeks before Thanksgiving. We'd had him for over 10 years, since our first year of marriage. Anyway, a neighbor told us he was convinced he'd seen his body at the bottom of a creek where the neighborhood drains drain into. We were sad (still are...I still think of him every time I open a can of tuna, cut up a cantaloupe, make corn on the cob or green peas, or leave a glass of water out on the table...but he doesn't come running anymore!)

While missing Simon, we saw some new baby chicks at a Homestead Craft & Children's Fair on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and they seemed a pleasant diversion. I admit that I was the one that wanted them (in addition to the kids), and Steve was a good sport & let me indulge. We got four Barred Rock chicks, hoping to end up with all hens, thus maximizing egg production. However, we are pretty well convinced that two of them are roosters, which I'm thinking aren't going to work so well in suburbia! Steve is trying to convince me to kill them, so we can eat them. (Note that he's trying to convince me to do the killing part; he's too big of a wuss to do it himself!) I have no idea what we'll end up doing with them, honestly. We'll have to find someone who lives in the country who can take them, or we can eat them, I guess, but we don't have to make that decision quite yet!

And, we have yet another bird...a cockatiel named Lucy. Somehow we went from a one-cat, one-pet family, to an all-fowl family! Lucy is almost two months old, according to her previous owner, an owner of two cockatiels that keep on having babies. We are working with Lucy now to teach her to come to us & be a generally pleasant bird. Just yesterday I heard her "singing" for the first time, and I heard it again today. Unfortunately, she seems to "yell" everytime the phone rings, so if you call, don't be surprised if you hear her carrying on in the background. All in all, I think she's settling in, and if we are faithful to train her and give her the attention she needs, she'll be a good pet for our family!

1 comment:

amy said...

I'm so sad for you guys. A bunch of birds are not quite the same as Simon, but I hope you enjoy them anyway!