A few weeks ago, Earl Grey got a piece of raffia stuck in his toes. You can't see his feet in this photo, but trust me: the start of it is stuck in his toes, and it dangles about four inches below the nest box. It was so long I thought I might just be able to catch him to untangle it, but it was really light. No way could I catch that bird. A short while later it broke off about where you'd expect: at that "fork" near Ginger's belly. And a short while after that, it came completely loose.

This is not the first time Earl Grey has gotten something stuck in his toes. There were two unfortunate incidents with potentially dangerous pieces of cloth (here and here), and once his toes got stuck in a piece of lettuce. Really.

But Earl Grey doesn't really have magnets in his toes — they're just shaped funny. No pictures, sorry, but I'll try to find one. His front toes are a little curled, and may be a little short. I'm pretty sure he was that way at hatch, but he has gotten a little less dexterous as he's gotten older. It sometimes takes him a couple of wing flutters to balance on a perch, for example. It isn't a bad handicap, but he is a bit more prone than most Finsters to get things stuck in his toes.

I've blown up the picture of Ginger's head because it shows the beginnings of a bald spot — she has kindly twisted her head in this photo to show it off. You may not be able to see it very well, but interestingly, on the right, Photoshop picked it up easily in several of its automatic filters.

Remember that sweet little cowlick that has shown up from time to time? Well, apparently somebody in the Finsterium doesn't like it, and has been plucking it off. In fact, Ginger's head is quite a bit balder now than she was in this picture. She looks like a tiny, feathered, tonsured monk. I'll try to get a better picture of it, but usually she isn't so accommodating as she was on this day.

I went to DC last week and met Jen. In person! She's the second Internet Friend I've met in person. Jen is very nice, and has beautiful teeth — isn't it funny what you notice about people when you meet them in real life?

We talked a little about blogging. We both agreed that people who dress their pets up, and have birthday parties for them, and write web pages from their pet's point of view, are a little over the top. Oh, I've recently gotten addicted to Cute Overload, but I'm just not interested in that ultra-cute "my pet is my baby" mentality. I like to think that the things I write in The Finster Log are a bit more true to life than that.

Now, I really don't want to offend anyone. If you're into dressing up your pets, and that sort of thing, then go for it. Life's too hard, and too short, to let my opinion bother you in any way.

Besides, I write a blog. About my pet birds. And I do things like — just now — shoo Ginger out of Earl Grey's nest box using the Scary Net Of Doom because he clearly wasn't going to settle down with her inside and it was BED TIME. So, you know, who am I to talk?

The other thing that Jen and I agreed on was that I probably shouldn't show off The Finster Log to any potential employers. Unless it were for my dream job of writing a blog about the animals in a zoo. Hint, hint. Still, a "normal" employer probably wouldn't be too impressed by what I do here, even though I don't dress my pets up, and even though I've made a number of impressive web sites. Which is a bit of a shame, but probably fine. It's a bad idea to talk about politics and religion with people at work, after all; I suppose pets can be a tricky subject, too.

But I guess this is really what this post is about:

Last week was the first time I went on a trip since Peanut died. Usually I start off on a trip thinking "Soon I'll be home to see Peanut!" Not this time. And when Bruce and I got home, I couldn't wake Peanut up to give him some Warm Toasties. Peanut was the best part of coming home.

I've chosen not to write about the sadness, although there's a lot of it. Little moments every day remind us of his loss: things we might have expected, and many things we didn't. Peanut was an integral part of our lives, and now everything seems empty without him. But writing about it all is hard, and I suppose self-indulgent, and I doubt very interesting to even the steady reader of this blog. (You know, if I have any left.)

But I've tried to write about Peanut's last hours a few times. Not for you readers, necessarily, but for me. Because, you know, I read the blog sometimes, to remember the stories, and the old friends. And Peanut's last hours were so sweet — well, bittersweet, really.

As I mentioned, Peanut wanted Daytime Warm Toasties and Bird Ruffles all day on Thursday, and Friday was no different. Since we were both home, Bruce and I indulged him completely. I held Peanut while Bruce ran errands, he held Peanut while I took care of the Finsters, I held Peanut while he cooked dinner, we both did work one-handed, and switched off for bathroom breaks.

We've had a lot of finches die over the years, and knowing how much Peanut liked Warm Toasties, we always wished they would let us give them that comfort while they were ill. But the Finsters were always a little scared of us, so they stayed alone in hospital cages while they were recovering, or — usually — dying. So when Peanut wanted all those Warm Toasties, we gave them to him.

Peanut had a hard time getting going on Saturday morning, so we decided not to go to the farmer's market, and stayed home with him. Like Friday, we spotted each other throughout the day, to give him the maximum possible amount of Warm Toasties. In fact, the few times I tried to put him on his perch, he refused. I experimented with his nest a couple of times. He'd stopped flicking out paper strips a few days before, I suppose since it was too much work, and he wasn't eating the sunflower seeds anyway.

Shocking.

So I filled the nest higher with paper strips, put an extra purple blanky on top for comfort, and hung a heating pad along the back wall for warmth. Bedtime was coming up, after all, so I figured the nest might be a good alternative to sleeping on his perch. But he wasn't too happy about this use of the nest, and kept climbing out of it. Still, I figured by nighttime, he might decide it was okay.

Bruce and I stayed up late (for us) on Saturday to give Peanut extra Warm Toasty time, but even so, Peanut didn't want to go into his cage when it was bed time. I finally managed to get him out of my hand, but he climbed over to the door when I closed it on him, and just hung there for a minute, trying to will himself back into my hand.

So, obviously, we stayed up all night on Saturday. Bruce did most of the work. He really wanted to cover the whole night, but he couldn't quite make it. I know Peanut appreciated the efforts of the Big Sweaty Hand, and I know Bruce loved every minute of it. Warm Toasties are sweet, and tender, and full of love on any day — even more so when the recipient isn't feeling well. But about 5 AM, Bruce had to get some sleep, so I took over.

Unfortunately, I had to take a bathroom break a couple of hours later — as a woman, I find it quite difficult to pee with a bird in one hand. So I dumped Peanut in his nest, and I guess he was tired enough that he stayed in it long enough for me to slip away. In fact, he was still dozing there when I came back into the living room, so I laid down on the couch for a bit to rest while he was still quiet. I was so worried about Peanut that I hadn't slept much while Bruce was staying up, and ended up dozing a bit. Peanut woke me up a little later when he climbed around his cage to get a drink of water.

Peanut seemed to be in reasonable shape on Sunday morning. He got up for that drink of water, and even drank enough of his medicine water that I was pretty sure he got a good dose. He hunted for millet spray on the top of his cage, and snacked a bit on other things. So we were optimistic, despite looking forward to a tired day. Bruce was sailing, so I had Warm Toasty duty to myself. We were already planning on the best way to stay up all night again, to give Peanut another night of Warm Toasties. And we were also fully prepared to indulge him with extra Daytime Warm Toasties once he recovered, since spoiling him while he was sick was sure to set him up for wanting more, all the time.

Before Bruce left I set myself up with everything I needed (laptop, TV remote, etc.), and an array of snacks and drinks for Peanut. The only problem I'd have were with bathroom breaks, but I was working on dehydrating myself, so hoped I wouldn't have too many of them. Everything was set.

Just before 1 PM Peanut got up from Warm Toasties and looked around for some snacks. He started squeaking at the Awesome Blue Spoon of Seedy Goodness, and ate a few seeds. Then, still squeaking, he fell over.

And that was it.

I guess it was about as sweet as death could be.