March update

The garden is so cheerful right now!  It's looking very "English Cottage Garden", which is my favorite kind.  I like a garden that looks like it just kind of popped up on it's own.  It's a less-cultivated and more wild look than many people appreciate, but it makes me very happy (and the critters really like it, too).  I don't have any garden pics from March (or April), so this is recent.

In March we adopted two cockatiels (Max and Elvis).  They settled in quite well and started exploring their territory more quickly and fearlessly than most birds who have lived in cages. They laid claim to a particular Amazon Prime box that was part of the bunny/guinea pig box village in their room.  The rabbits and Luna had no problem sharing, as they have plenty of other boxes.  The boys have been playing house in that box for months--waiting for the eggs that will never happen, poor things.  They are adorable together and are always together--feeding and grooming each other and performing elaborate song and dance routines.

Fergus struggled with pastuerella--a horrible, often fatal bacterial infection.  He's six, which is rather old for a dwarf rabbit, so it was particularly frightening.  He was moving in a rather uncoordinated way on a Sunday night, and by Monday morning, he tried to jump off his favorite spot (about 18 inches off the ground) and fell.  His balance was obviously impaired and he was struggling. I had one class to teach in the morning, so I scheduled a vet appointment for immediately following. In a few short hours, he had progressed rapidly and his head was tilted extremely far to the right, and his eyes were jumping and rolling.  I was shocked and sick to see how badly he had gotten in that period of time. We got the diagnosis and antibiotics and eye drops for him, but the prognosis wasn't very encouraging.  He was incredibly nauseated (motion sick) due to the pastuerella invading his inner ear.  He was miserable and unable to eat, and without keeping his gut full and healthy, he wouldn't live long enough for the antibiotics to work.

I couldn't get him to eat anything--he rejected his favorite treats.  I started syringe feeding, and that wasn't going well, because he would refuse to swallow and just let it run out.  I spent hours and hours in there begging, pleading, and trying everything to get him to keep food in. The poor baby was just too miserable to swallow anything.  This is where I stopped blogging, as I was trying to give him round the clock care and feeding, which threw me even further behind in both sleep and work--both of which I was already struggling with.  I am forever grateful for my amazing "animal friends" and their constant support and wealth of knowledge!  My friend, Julie, is the rabbit expert in my life, and she recommended using meclizine (Bonine/some types of Dramamine) to help with the horrible nausea. That took the edge off enough that I was able to get food into him and keep him going long enough for the antibiotics to work their magic.  He quickly started to improve.  

Often the head tilt from pastuerella is permanent, and while I was hoping it would clear up, I wasn't optimistic about the odds.  Within a week, though, that was getting better.  In the photo above, you can see he is still tilted.  Within a couple of weeks, it was totally gone.  He still has the pastuerella in his left eye, but it's managed with drops and cleaning, and I watch him carefully to make sure it's not getting out of control again.

We celebrated the traditional B-D family St. Patrick's Day, with Mark making an "Irish" meal (hash, baked potatoes, corn, Irish soda bread, green beer) and M & the kids carving soap.  The soap boat floating competition gets fiercer each year, with L. wining again this year.  All but three of the boats sank immediately, with the remaining three lingering for almost three long weeks.

I don't have a working 'c' on my laptop keyboard right now. It started working erratically a few days ago, so I took it apart and tried to fix it yesterday.  It didn't go well and isn't working and the key won't stay on at all now. I ordered a new key (but I don't think that's the problem--I think it's a problem with the entire keyboard, but I'm going to try the $7 repair first). In the meantime, to type that letter, I have one copied to the clipboard, and use ctrl-V to paste the copied 'c' every time I need to type one.  It's a pain in the ass.  There were 107 'c's in this post!