Crow Babies

It has been a long couple of weeks with no days off, but finals are over and I'm done with work for a while! I have done basically nothing since I last blogged about our kitten except work and study and I am ready for a break. We're heading out in the morning on a road trip for six weeks for Forrest's family reunion as well as to see other family members and camp at Yellowstone and etc. I know that sounds like a long trip, but that's only because it is. We are excited! I've been waiting expectantly for this trip for months and I can't believe it's finally here. I also can't believe how quickly this year has flashed by. We've been in Washington for SIX MONTHS.

It's making my mind spin.

Soon we'll be living in Seattle (and should probably find a place to live) and a whole new part of life will begin. I've never lived in the city before and I'm really looking forward to it--if only to see what it's like. I have a feeling that I'm really a country person at heart, but we'll see!

Also I finally ordered myself a new laptop because this one I'm typing on right now is over four years old and waaay past its prime. I'm maybe a little more excited about this than I should be (but really, who has time for a slow computer?), but I can't even contain myself. I tell Forrest how happy I am to get a new computer at least twice a day. Probably more. It's up there with the excitement I felt when I ordered my first DSLR.

Since it has been a few really busy weeks, we have a lot to catch up on. One of these things that I meant to post much earlier was my crow babies! It is kind of a sad story, so be warned.

We found a baby crow in the middle of our yard when Jasper wouldn't leave it alone. He would sit by it and watch it and occasionally paw at it gently. The crow thought Jasper was his mommy and kept begging for food. We looked it up, and all the websites said to leave the crow babies alone; the parents are most likely around and watching. Except that they weren't. We watched all day and not once did the parents appear to feed the poor fledgling. We took pity and I moved the crow baby under a bush to protect him from cats while Megan fed him some mushed up dog food and egg.

This went on for another couple of days until my mother informed me that she had seen the crow under a different bush on the other side of the yard. But, wait, no, the crow was still under the original bush and this was a new crow! So we ended up with two crow children to care for and feed every two hours or so. They ate from a spoon and were very vocal about letting us know they were hungry. It was actually kind of adorable.

Fast forward a week or two later. The crows were beginning to venture from their nest and hop around the yard. We found them inside flower pots a few times and they started learning new things like roosting. They were at least twice as big as when we first found them and their feathers were coming in nicely. Jasper was still intensely interested in the crow babies and watched them. Then one day, we found that one of the crows was missing all of his tail feathers! That brute of a dog had pulled them all out.

The crows were moved to a birdcage on the porch. We left the door open for a few hours during the day so that they could venture or retreat as they liked. We discussed calling a bird rescue center and agreed it was for the best.

Then, tragedy struck. Jasper found one of the crows in the middle of the yard and decided to play. I was interrupted from studying by my dad calling into the house that Jasper had killed one of the crows. Megan and I ran from the house to discover that, no, the crow was not dead, just injured. The pup had pulled all of his back feathers out and left him in the middle of the yard. We patched him up as best as we could and Megan drove him to the bird rescue center with the other crow baby for company.

We still haven't heard back from the bird rescue, but we're all hoping for a happy ending. The other baby crow was healthy (minus some tail feathers) so when he gets older, the bird rescue will call us so that we can release him in the same area. We're hoping that we'll be able to release two healthy crows.