Weekend excitement

This weekend we had a bit of a scare or excitement depending on how you look at it.  During the early morning hours on Saturday, a horrible noise jolted us awake.  We later discovered that a section of the ceiling had fallen in and water was pouring from the hole.  Miss Sue and her husband were the first on the scene, then Mom and Miss Rachel came in.  It was a mess. Ceiling tiles were broken, the carpet was soaked and everything had to moved and cleared.  Then the cleaning company came in.

They took down the remaining ceiling tiles, punctured the plastic around the insulation and more water poured down.  They then vacuumed up the water, sprayed against mold and mildew (for which we are grateful - we are very sensitive to that stuff so we really don't want the library to get it) and set about drying everything out.

The drying was done with big fans and huge dehumidifiers which created quite a draft.  Mom moved us to the young adult section of the library so we wouldn't catch cold.  And that is how we spent the rest of the weekend - listening to huge fans and machines blowing.  By Tuesday things were back to normal.  It was an interesting weekend.  What a way to end the year!

The leaky ceiling without tiles

The drying out

Happy Holidays

We want to wish all our friends near and far a Happy Holiday Season!  And we have a request for all our little friends - don't forget to throw a little birdseed outside this Holiday Season, because whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or nothing at all, it never hurts to be kind to your feathered friends.  We know that not all little birds are taken care of as well as us.  Miss Renee says that no matter who you are or what you celebrate, this is the season to be kind to others, so we want to be kind to our feathered friends.  If you need some help we've created a birdy recipe sure to delight.


You can put this out in a dish, or smear onto a piece of bread or a pine cone - it doesn't matter. Though if you are using a dish you can skip the peanut butter part.

Materials:
peanut butter/vegetable shortening
bird seed
sunflower seeds
dried cranberries or raisins
oatmeal
pinecone, bread, or bagel
spoon

1.  Mix together the bird seed, sunflower seeds, and oatmeal together
2.  Spread peanut butter (or if you are allergic to nuts - vegetable shortening) onto your base (bread, pinecone, etc) with the spoon (or a knife if you're old enough)
3.  Roll or sprinkle the seed mixture onto the base
4.  Dip the dried cranberries or raisins into the peanut butter/shortening and push onto seed covered base.
5.  Place outside somewhere you can see

Now you can add a string to this creation and hang from a branch - but remember not all birds can eat that way.  Some birds are ground feeders so feel free to just place it out on the ground somewhere.

Now you may feed more than birds.  We had some friends a few years ago, who made a bird feeder this was with Miss Renee and when they hung it outside a squirrel stole the whole thing.  This is okay - if it happens make another one and place it somewhere higher.  But, honestly, we don't mind sharing with the squirrels.

Hope you have some fun with this.

Our Visit with Santa

Santa visited the library on November 20th to find out what the kids wanted for Christmas this year.  But he did stay a little longer so that we could have a chat.

It was nice to spend some time with him and we even got our Christmas wish - We wanted to know how reindeer fly if they don't have wings.  You wouldn't believe the answer.  But we promised not to tell so you'll just have to trust us that it is totally awesome.  If you want to keep track of Santa on his biggest night of the year just click here.  

Settling in

Having a snack at our old food bowl. Because we tend to flick our seed, Miss Renee gave us new food bowls with hoods, so we don't make as much of a mess.

Our New Home

We now have a new home.  We are now living in the Children's Department at the North Smithfield Public Library.  

A little about us for those of you who are new.  We are Zebra Finches.  Our species is native to Australia, but have been a domesticated bird for about 200 years.  Kyp and I were born to a breeder and when we were old enough we were sent to Petco, a pet store in Auburn, MA.  We were there for a while with a flock of others, until Miss Renee and her friend Miss Judy came into the store on March 1, 2010 and took us home to the Auburn Public Library.  We had a lot of fun there.  

Ooh Ooh tell them about our adventures there!

We don't have time, Kyp and stop interrupting me.

Well,  if you want to read about our adventures there visit our old journal.  We are now four years old and are quite healthy.  If you have trouble telling us apart you can ask Miss Renee - yeah she knows us so well.  Anyway, Kyp (my name is mispronounced a lot, but if you remember that it rhymes with skip you will get it just right) has a large white spot on the top of his head.  Oh and Percy has two little white spots above his beak - they look a little like eyebrows according to Miss Renee, but we don't really know what those are.

Well, back to our story - we had a great time in Auburn and made lots of friends.  But when Miss Renee moved to her new job, the she and the librarians in Auburn thought we should go with her so that we would continue to be well taken care of and hopefully meet a whole new group of friends.

We have been here at the North Smithfield Public Library for a week now.  We are meeting some new kids and grownups.  We have a very nice and sunny spot.  Miss Renee is still taking very good care of us and we are quite happy.  The staff here is very friendly and they seem glad that we are here.  We haven't started exploring yet but once we are a bit more familiar I'm sure we'll be taking a good look around. 

We hope that if you visit our new library you'll stop by and visit.  We also hope that if you can't visit that you continue reading our blog to find out what we've been up too.