Thanksgiving with the Birds and Cinna-bunny

Coconut and Cher got to hit the road last week for a Thanksgiving weekend with the whole family, reunited at Ms. Flock Advisor’s place on the west coast. We headed out on Wednesday evening with Nutri-berries and turkey sandwiches for road-food, and a Big Gulp. Coconut got the whole back seat to himself and spent most of his time chattering at every bump in the road that had the audacity to shake his house around and spill his water dish. Cher rode shotgun.

I carried the two of them up to Ms. Flock Advisor’s apartment just in time for dinner and a movie at home. Kenobi was already there tormenting Sprite by eating leftover bits of fruit pellets around the base of his cage. A few minutes into our visit, Cher had cranked out enough screams to prompt Ms. Flock Advisor to advise me that I should keep her with me at all times during awake hours to prevent the screeches, and eviction.

Coconut and Lennon got reacquainted, mimicking chirps back and forth. More on them later.

We decided to spend the first half of Thanksgiving Day with the animals, and watching the early football game of course. Ms. Flock Advisor was as into the game as much as I until New England started stacking points on top of points in the second half. Kenobi and the birds weren’t bothered by the score, though, and got lots of time with us until we went over to our wonderful friends' house, The Middletons of Greater Tampa, for a heaping feast of gourmet delights. Kenobi seemed to be enjoying the litter box I got for him on our arrival the weekend before. It is a little smaller than the one he normally uses, and he looks like a pot roast when he sits in it. Cram a few potatoes in there with him and you’d have a proper English feast.

Kenobi did get splashed with spice the day after Thanksgiving. I was home all day trying to get some work out of the way and Kenobi had decided to keep the Thanksgiving feel alive by feasting on some carpet under Ms. Flock Advisor’s couch. After several attempts to chase him out, and show him that he had a tasty stack of hay on the other side of the room, I had to resort to more desperate measures. In the past we’ve used lemon juice or cinnamon to discourage him from eating a patch of carpet he is particularly attracted to. He only seems inclined to eat certain patches of carpet at a time for some reason. Since we had stocked up on pumpkin pie making supplies we had plenty of cinnamon available for the task. I reached blindly under the couch to sprinkle a little down, and Kenobi charged defiantly from behind the couch. He rammed his nose into the open end of the shaker, causing a minor cinnamon explosion, and then took off in panic on an erratic lap around the room that ended with a dive into his cage. He was sneezing incessantly and wiping his nose with his front paws while I was still trying to process what had just happened.

I pulled him out of his cage to find that his face was powdered with the brown spice, as were both of his front paws. I took him over to the sink and sponge-bathed his twitching nose until he could manage a breath without a sneeze. Once he was all cleaned up, he got back to being his normal self quickly, although he smelled like a Christmas candle. He did have a few sneezing fits throughout the evening, but they were gone the next day. When Ms. Flock Advisor called on her way home so that we could make a dinner plan I asked if she would like some pumpkin pie for desert, or if she would rather hang out with Cinna-bunny. I felt really bad about the incident, but we made it up to the little guy by bringing him an 8-foot tall bunny snack the next day to nibble on.

Saturday was our day together. Ms. Flock Advisor was off of work and we decided, once again, to spend time with the animals. Lennon and Coconut got to fly around together. Well, as usual, it was more Coconut chasing Lennon on laps around the room. It is fun to watch, though. Lennon still will not let Coconut hang out with him.

Coconut did find himself a hangout later in the day after we had gone to pick up our Christmas tree. While watching the Gators get their spanking from the Seminoles, we let the two little white birds have the run of the house. Coconut flew straight to the tree and perched on it. When I walked over to pick him up he just crawled right inside the branches and ended up totally concealed, and content. We couldn’t see him, but he did make a few chirpy Christmas Vacation-like sound effects from inside. Cher and Coconut also posed for a few pictures with the tree, but I think the “C-nut’s Hideout” shot came out the best.

Kenobi found the tree tasty. He came out and immediately started nibbling on the low-hanging branches. I was concerned about his health and set-up a fence around the tree. Ms. Flock Advisor jumped on the Google-train and found that Douglas Fir is eaten by Deer, Chipmunks, and Rabbits in the wild, so turns out he was okay. That was good because by the time she came across that information he was already gobbling up the fallen needle-trail that led in from the door. The little guy couldn’t get enough tree needles. I gave him a few as a reward for going into his cage at night.

Monday morning it was time to haul Cher, Coconut, and Kenobi back to the east coast with me. Cher was kind enough to wake up any sleeping neighbors as we made our 6am departure. The weekend was wonderful. It was great to have everybody under one roof, and for once not be missing/ worrying about any of the Feather Dormers all weekend long. We’ll be doing it again for Christmas, I can’t wait!


Can you find all the animals in this photo?