I don't get colds very often these days, but when I do, they're pretty bad. And I think Bruce is taking advantage of this. In fact, I think he deliberately gave me his cold, so that I'd be in a weakened, vulnerable state. Oh, sure, he went out late last night, all nice and pleasant, to get me two new kinds of decongestants to try, plus some whiskey (or whisky, depending on your spelling preferences) just in case the drugs didn't work. And you'd think that was really, really sweet. Except that today, after I spent about six hours dozing on the couch, he took me out to get raffia.

You know, so the birds can make nests.

And being half full of snot as I am, with brain cells not quite working, I agreed.

Szechwan (Pepper) was the first to fly to the lowest perch to look at the new material, but Earl Grey was the first down on the ground, rolling the end of a piece of raffia around in his beak, checking it out, and singing his Hunka Hunka Burning Love song to it. Nice! He flew up to a high perch with a piece, and Szechwan (Pepper) and Cinnamon immediately flew over to try to steal it from him.

Get your own, boys!

Oolong was next to take a piece of raffia, and once again, Szechwan (Pepper) and Cinnamon tried to steal it from her. While Earl Grey was able to get his piece into his nest box, interference caused Oolong to drop several pieces back to the ground. For some reason, Szechwan (Pepper) prefers to steal raffia from other birds than pick his own off the floor, and there have been a couple of Tugs of War, often with one bird hovering in midair. Once, Cinnamon got a piece into his nest, but it was so long he didn't get it all inside the box. Ginger stood on the porch, and pulled the end right back out.

Well, two dollars' worth of raffia will provide hours of fun. But I'm not sure it was worth this cold.