Aye Matey

On St Patrick's Day we had two birthdays in our family. Lucy, our black lab, turned 8 years old and Shamrock, one of our guinea pigs, turned 2. What was supposed to be a pleasant evening of animal celebration soon turned into chaos. Jenifer went downstairs and found that one of their gerbils was very sick and seconds later it quit breathing. From what we can piece together, the little critter was doing his exercise running on the wheel when it slipped and landed on the sharp edge that he had been using as a chew toy.

This obviously traumatized the girls and we told them we would replace it with another one the next day. But they were having trouble with the idea and didn't seem interested. This is like their third gerbil/hamster/guinea pig that they have lost over the past two or three years. It is always a horrific event and their girlfriends all come over and they dig a hole in the corner of the yard and gather around and say a prayer and for two or three days they all share stories about the particular critter who has passed. It seemed so much easier back in the day when they stood around the toilet bowl and flushed their favorite fish. Nowadays when a fish dies they just grab it and flush it. No more mourning, or tears, or prayers. Just the sound of water and a quiet, "Goodbye".
I decided that maybe...just maybe, we were ready for birds. So I talked to a friend who said that he had a cage that his son was selling and that his kid would probably give me a deal. The deal turned out to be a $140.00 cage for $25.00. That was such a deal that it made getting the birds-- a pair of parakeets the girls named  Max and Eliza -- very nearly a steal.

Eliza and Max