Body Count

In case you were wondering...since the initial tally just two weeks ago, I've had to clean up/dispose of/gag over the tiny corpses of three more no-longer-breathing birds, not to mention shooing away the one that somehow flew in through the window on its own steam (I assume, since it was unharmed).

Today's carcass was clearly that of a very young bird. Its feathers are all over my sleeping bag, on which Benni was lying when I came up the stairs, and which was spread out because that's where Em fell asleep last night while we talked together for a while. (I keep it by the side of my bed at all times for night-wandering children; you never know who's going to show up when, and I'd rather tell them to spread out the bag and plop down than get out of my bed and take them back downstairs. Self preservation, my friends. Self preservation.)

The good news: No new rats, and no new lizards or lizard tails, dead or alive. If you can call that good news. As I drag my vacuum cleaner up the stairs, realizing I've sucked up enough feathers recently to stuff a duvet, I'm finding it hard to look at it that way.

Damn cats. They're lucky I love 'em.