So I've found so little to blog about in the last few months, (well, mostly I've just been busy and haven't bothered to take pics of the new place yet...sorry! Those ARE coming, I promise!), I'm proud to announce that I have an amazing story for everyone:Yesterday morning, I awoke to a metal scratching sound in the house. At first I thought that the ratties had somehow constructed some sort of "rudimentary lathe" and were attempting their Great Escape. But when I walked into the living room, they were both asleep, and somewhat annoyed at my waking them. I went back to bed thinking it was our upstairs neighbors or something. But the noise persisted, and I realized it was coming from the hall closet that contains our furnace and water heater. By this time, Abram was up and we discovered to our chagrin, as we peered into the dark closet, a feather sticking out of the furnace. Oh no...there was a bird in our furnace! We spent the next hour taking pieces of ducts apart, trying to get the poor thing out, which looked horribly wedged and frightened. Finally, we gave up, knowing we had to get to work. So we closed the closet and left. I called an HVAC guy that said he could come by later that afternoon. "The bird will die!" I kept sobbing, and could think of little else during the day. Well, the maintenance guy never made it. Apparently his previous appointment went too long or something. So we went home determined that by hook or by crook, that poor bird, dead or alive, would be freed from our furnace.
We opened up the closet when we got home, and couldn't hear anything as we tapped on the ducts. "It's dead," we said quite soberly, and Abram left for his bishopric meeting, stating that he would fix everything when he got back. I went to the kitchen to drown my sorrows in doing the dishes. Then I noticed a little feather on the floor. "That's strange," I thought, and as I continued around the house, I noticed SEVERAL feathers and little turds in various places. OH SNAP!!! The bird was IN the house somewhere! I can't imagine how it got under the furnace closet door, but upon inspection, I found a little feather stuck to the bottom of the door; a serious Houdini move! I called Abram, who was luckily able to come home, and we began to search every nook and cranny of the house for the little escape artist. Autumn and Leslie came over to help too. At long last we realized that our feathered (so-called) friend had found its way into the swamp cooler. Unfortunately, we couldn't get it out from the outside. We had to get it to come back into the house first. We coaxed it up to the front vent, turned on the cooler, and the air rushing up behind it convinced it to poke its little head out. He looked at us as if to say "Oh hello!" I was by this time quite unsympathetic, and was wondering why I had every shed any tears over this bird. It at last flew out of the vent, circled around the kitchen, landed on my dish rack, and then at last out the patio door. GOOD GRIEF!! What a special bird, and what a bizarre adventure. We're not sure what kind of bird it was, but it was similar to the one in the picture here. I would have to say one of the funniest parts of this whole ordeal was Moochie and Butters. They were peacefully asleep nearly the whole time as if to say, "Oh well, another boring day." It's hard to imagine what kind of excitement would get them out of bed in the afternoon. :)
