I’ve added a line for Al’s Phatback to my Ecosystem Tracking Graph. So now you can compare Al’s popularity to Rebecca and myself. I think the Ecosystem is a bit slow recognizing new links though. There seems to be some lag going on. But still a fun graph.

Now if only Al would post more.

Brandy wanted to blog this one, so here’s Brandy…

Fire on Aisle 7

Sam recently taught my 8 year old daughter to ride a bike. I know she was a bit old not to have known already, but she’s as stubborn as I am and REFUSED to do it until recently. So anyway, it’s like her favorite thing now. She is constantly needling Sam to take her bike riding. This time he gave in rather easily, grabbed his helmet, and out they went…only to come running back in quickly to tell me that the place was surrounded with news helicopters.

Cool. Wonder what’s happening. There were emergency vehicles directing traffic at a nearby intersection. Were the traffic lights out? Was there a big pile up right under the bridge? Checked the TV, but there was nothing, then checked the radio, thinking maybe there was a big accident on one of the other nearby highways but again, nothing. Strange. I went back into the kitchen to continue what I was doing and they went out to ride, after I promised to follow on foot as soon as I was done.

I went out to find them, and decided first to see what the guys at the corner were doing, and there were a LOT of people walking around, which seemed really kind of strange, but it WAS a nice day. But then I realized…the cops were blocking traffic from coming in OUR direction. That wouldn’t be happening if there was an accident on the highway. Curiouser and curiouser. I turned to go back and find the bikers and there it was. Right next to the condo development. Billows of smoke, fire engines, an ambulance. Something big was going down RIGHT NEXT DOOR! I just HAD to check it out! Fortunately, Sam and Amy rode up just then, so I diverted them around the corner, biting my tongue and NOT mentioning anything about Sam misssing what was DIRECTLY under his nose (because it’s not like that has ever hapened before). And off we went to watch it burn. Burn, baby, burn! Lots of smoke. Men in uniform. Pretty fire. I like fire. Fire nice…

We watched for a while, actually stood by one of the cart corrals for a little while, and watched the firemen spray away. We took some pictures, since I had the camera to take pictures of Amy riding. There was this “do not cross” tape, but no one seemed to be paying attention, so why should we, right? But then Amy rode her bike right into a tree and the battery in the camera died, so we decided to go back.

I feel kinda bad now, because the last time I went by that store I thought, we should go there next time instead of the Giant. Probably should have done that BEFORE it burned down.

Oops.

Bucks supermarket ravaged by ferocious fire
(Dave Sommers, The Trentonian)

An upscale supermarket known for its distinct selection of foods was destroyed in a spectacular blaze yesterday when a fire that started in nearby shrubbery spread up the building’s outer wall and eventually consumed the entire structure.

Officials said McCaffrey’s Supermarket, one of two anchor stores at the Edgewood Village Shopping Center on Heacock Road, will likely be declared a total loss once investigators get inside and survey the damage.

Police said nearly 200 people were inside the store at around 4 p.m. when some outside bushes and leaves near the building’s southern wall somehow ignited and quickly went up in flames.

Day 5 is finally posted! We are making rapid progress now!

2003 Q3 Random Vacation – Day 5

First thing, check the GPS.  Altitude…  5957 feet.  I had been at 9165 feet at the top.  This means that I had done a vertical climb of 3208 feet!  Plus a lot of horizontal distance too.  And then back down again!  Go me!  That was a LOT of hiking for Sam!

Status of the whole thing right now:

Days @, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Posted
Day 6: All comments received, being prepared for posting
Days 7, 8: Awaiting comments from Marilyn and Chad
Day 9: Finished, waiting to be posted in order

We’ll have this thing finished soon! Promise!

This morning as I was sitting in my bedroom, I looked over at Cheese and Skittle’s cage. They had not been making noise or anything, but the perch was suddenly bright scarlet instead of the normal wood color. I went over. It was clear that one of them was bleeding. A *lot*. I banged on the bathroom door where Brandy was taking a bath, and while she was getting out I determined that while they both had some blood on them, it looked like it was Cheese that was bleeding. From his foot.

I was completely freaking out. I caught Zuri and put her in her cage right away. Zuri had been checking out the little birds, and there was at least a chance that Zuri had bitten Cheese. Brandy doesn’t think so though, because for the most part Zuri harrasses the little birds and looks in, but doesn’t try to grab them or anything, plus they just step a couple steps away from the side and Zuri can’t reach them. Or Cheese could have just caught it on something on the cage. It happens. No way to tell. Whatever it was, the bird hadn’t screamed…. I was in the room, I heard nothing. Just looked up and saw blood. :-(

Brandy caught cheese and first told me to get some kind of funky pencil that I had never heard of, must less had, then toilet paper. While she was trying to find the wound on Cheese and start applying pressure, I caught Skittles just to triple check Skittles wasn’t injured too. Skittles seemed fine.

While Brandy was applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding, we called the local bird vert and they told us to come right in. We got Cheese into a little box full of toilet paper and started rushing to the vet. I was so scattered, Brandy was afraid I was going to run over her as she was getting in the car.

Cheese was still bleeding in the box. It was his left foot for sure. We got to the vet and it seemed like forever doing paper work and then waiting for the vet. And Cheese was starting to get sleepy. We were trying to keep her awake. Budgies don’t have very much blood to begin with, and Cheese had lost a lot. Birds in this kind of situation often bleed to death. Brandy wispered to me that she didn’t think Cheese was going to make it.

The vet confirmed that the foot was cut open. Pretty badly. Not just that. The bone was broken.

The vet first gave Cheese intravenous fluids to counter the blood loss. The needle was practically bigger than the bird. The vet tech held Cheese’s head and pulled the feathers back, and the vet injected a whole bunch of saline.

Then he took little tiny pieces of surgical tape and splinted up the toe that was broken and wrapped it tight. Both to prevent any more bleeding, and to set the broken bone.

The vet said that Brandy had done good stopping or slowing down most of the bleeding, and the fluids and split should be enough, and that Cheese should recover. The splint needs to stay on for two weeks. For now Cheese needs to be in a seperate cage, although he should be back to himself in a couple days. In the mean time, he’ll probably be really quiet compared to normal.

On the way out as I was paying the $90 for the vet visit, Brandy talked to Cheese: “You are one lucky bird you know, that is four times more than you cost!”. :-)

We took Cheese home, stopping on the way to get a mini cage where he could hang out seperately, but not have too much room to get rambunctious.

Anyway, everybody is home now. I was very worried and had to work hard to keep it together for awhile, and sort of collapsed as soon as I got home. But it looks like Cheese is going to be OK. If we can just keep him from eating the splint on his foot.

Whew!