rescue aid society.....

When I was a little girl I loved this movie:

to be honest, I still do!

There was something special about Bernard with his stuffy, snuffly voice and bumbly, clumsy self coming to the aid of the oh so classy Miss Bianca to rescue the darling Penny from the evil Madame Medusa.  Just thinking of the nasty Brutus and Nero still gives me chills. But like all Disney movies there is a happy ending.

Which I was reminded of when we held our own Rescue Aid last week.  A little bird thougt it was all grown up and tried to fly away.  Unfortunately, Peep (as I imediately named him/her) didn't have the much needed lateral lift and gravity took hold as he wound up on the front porch.  How he avoided becoming Luci's (the evil kitty of which no picture could truly do her justice) next snack is a miracle, but there he was when we got home!

R-E-S-C-U-E

Rescue Aid Society

Heads held high, touch the sky

You mean everything to me

In a fix, in a bind

Call on us anytime

We'll appear from nowhere

Mighty are we

(I did notice the 2 is crooked, it's on the honey do list)

Of course the Mr was immediately summoned to get the BIG ladder and put him right back where he belonged so we could go about the remainder of our day.

R-E-S-C-U-E

Rescue Aid Society

Honesty, loyalty

We pledge to thee

R-E-S-C-U-E

Rescue Aid Society

Heads held high, touch the sky

You mean everything to me

In a jam, in a scrape

And you think, "no escape"

Do not fear, we'll be here

Courageous are we

R-E-S-C-U-E

Rescue Aid Society

Heads held high, touch the sky

Our hearts we pledge to thee

Of course he didn't stay in the nest.  He was determined to be out on his own so we set him up in his own little studio appartment on the bathroom counter.  Fed him some delicious take-out of sugar water and liquified cat food (yuk) and called it a night.  After two plunges from the safety of his nest the little guy made it thru the night and was immediately transfered to the vet to be hand fed every two hours.

Nurse Katie is the best, although Dr. Mom does make some pretty delicious looking cat food mush!

Backyard friends

Every spring in the creek down the street there are tons of tadpoles. Every year we catch some, mostly because I encourage my kids to because I remember visiting my Uncle Tat and Aunt Mary in Murphys and I did it in their creek. I had high hopes of one day nursing my little tadpole into a giant toad I could enter into the Calavaras County Frog Jumping Contest. That never happened. Each year we would visit Yosemite or Big Trees National Park, camping on our way home. For some reason I was not allowed to keep a jar, with a lid, full of harmless tadpoles in the tent trailer. This meant they had to stay out in the cold. And every year they died. End of my frog jumping career.

So Matthew and Katie carry on the tradition with sacraficial tadpoles from our creek. Ocassionally, well, actually only once,maybe twice - lesson learned - they (Matthew) came back with poison oak too. The tadpoles end up in our pond in the back yard. They are great at eating the mosquito larvae that happen to appear each year at this time.

Problems solved. Or so I thought.

A couple years ago one of those tadpoles actually survived. It even turned into a frog. Now this frog knows a good thing. He hasn't left. He hibernates somewhere and each spring one night usually in the wee hours after midnight and before 4am it starts. This awful noise. Croooooaaaaaak, over and over. Mike always wakes up. Sometimes I do. The really fun part is when Matthew wakes up - the pond is outside his window - and asks in sleep stupification what is that noise?? I lovingly remind him it's HIS FROG!

buzz off....

I have several humingbird feeders throughout our backyard for my little bird friends. This year we have birds that have been coming to eat all winter, so I keep them happy and keep filling the feeders. We also have some unwelcome guests that showed up late in the summer. My guess is there is a beehive somewhere close by and the stinkin' bees are after a free and easy meal! The bees are pretty agressive and will buzz around the hummingbirds until they fly away. They will also follow me with the feeder! I HATE bees....they need to move away before summer when I will be out in the yard all the time!

Christmas Card Photos

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Who's Tortoise is this anyway?

Our new friend Timmy the Tortoise!

Matthew and Katie with Timmy after he was "rescued" from the garage!

Matthew loves Timmy's red eyes!

Taffy enjoying a snack '07

We must be a magnet for wildlife!

While cleaning out our garage and moving things around we heard a strange noise. After investigating we found a little tortoise in our garage! The noise and commotion must have woken him up or scared the poor thing half to death. We have no idea how long he had been there or where on earth he came from, but he sure is a cutie! He's now in a much friendlier environment in the back yard nibbling on my plants and digging in the dirt. He's really shy and pretty small. Mostly he disappears for days/weeks then you see him out and about! Last year about this time we found - or he found us - an African Spur Tortoise. He was about 35 pounds and too cute just cruising down the middle of the street. We named him Taffy and kept him for several months until the mess was too much to handle (the dog loved to roll in his poop), then off to the tortoise rescue people! They had never seen a tortoise of that variety so large! Taffy was super friendly and would follow us around the yard like a dog, come when you called him and talked to him.