Good News (Another Annoyingly Optimistic Post)

1. Thank You Pacific Wildlife Care!

A few weeks ago Glenn found an abandoned baby bird near the milking parlor at Rinconada Dairy. He brought the little bird home to me to mother. Usually I jump at the chance to help a little animal, but domesticated animals are more my bag. I like to leave wild animals in the hands of professionals to ensure correct diet and care (plus, it is illegal to keep wildlife). Luckily we have a great local organization called Pacific Wildlife Care. I called PWC and was met by a local volunteer named Debbie. Debbie, a fellow nurse, took our baby sparrow home to help her feed and grow.

Oliver was not too happy about having someone else raise his baby. He named her Celestial and the two had a lovely breakfast together before we made Oliver say goodbye to his new friend.

Last week Debbie called us and let us know Celestial was doing great and was ready to be released. She was being raised with two other sparrows. Debbie wanted to know if we would like to be present for the release. We decided to release all three sparrows at Rinconada Dairy because it is a great place for a sparrow to live.

It was wonderful watching all three birds fly up to the nearest oak. They are already surrounded by a family of sparrows. In the picture below I have circled all three birds at the time of release. They moved so fast, it was hard to get a clear picture.


2. Business is Booming (or Beeping Just a Little)

I don't write about our small business too much, mainly because it has taken a back seat to everything else in our lives. We finally got it together enough the past few months to create a display for our balms. We are selling at two cool shops: one in California and one in Rhode Island. The lip balm seems to be doing quite well as we have gotten orders from both shops to refill the displays. Perhaps next year on our taxes we will be able to show that we broke even rather than claiming -77 dollars!


3. Jessica B-B, Author?

Some of you (the three of you who read my blog) might remember that I was attempting to write a children's book. I wrote a book based loosely on this blog post:

Another Weird Bee Post

Then one night back in December I was feeling adventurous, so I sent an email query to an independent publishing house. I was surprised to hear back from the editor the next day requesting the full manuscript. Then five long months later, after I had finally given up all hope, I received an email from the editor. She said my manuscript was a "strong contender" and wanted to send it to a focus group. She asked if the publishing house could have exclusive review of it during the focus group process. I'm so satisfied to have made it this far in the children's book writing experience, I don't really even need my MS to be published (although that would be unbelievable). An editor read my MS and actually liked it-I'm THRILLED!

4. More Chicks

(Photo credit: Glenn)
Our friends have decided to start keeping chickens. Instead of ordering chicks, we picked out several pretty eggs and put them under our broody hen (she really wanted some babies). On day twenty, I checked under our hen Etta and found one chick. Over the next two days, four more arrived. One disappeared the first day. We think she may have fallen into a ground squirrel hole we didn't notice under the brooding box. Glenn cemented the floor of the coop and we haven't lost anymore. Poor little chick (I just had to bring things down a little). So now we have four chicks, two from brown eggs and two from blue eggs. I hope at least a couple will be egg layers!



4. One More Goat!

The sister of my coworker lives on the most beautiful property between Morro Bay and Atascadero. She raises goats and knew we were looking for a male (with different genetics) to eventually breed with our females. She called us because a shiny, black male was born a few weeks ago and wanted to know if we would like him. Here are pictures of our fourth (and final) goat. He will be staying with his mother to nurse for a good long time, which we are very happy about. Now we just need yet another name!