I am still alive, I've just been spending a lot of my time sleeping.  My medication is not keeping up with my thyroid decline, but I am assured by my doctor that it shouldn't continue much longer than a year to reach total zero, at which point, we'll try and find the right dosage.

In the mean time, I'm working on things (when I'm awake) that I assure you will be fun and exciting when I'm able to talk about them.

So... 

Oh, here's a story about my vultures.  I happened to look outside from my near-permanent perch on the sofa, and caught our vultures in the act of mating.  In the window of the chicken coop (see avatar).  Now, vultures aren't terribly graceful on the ground at the best of times, and well, when they're mating, their balance is... precarious.  As I watched, the male fell off the female, backwards into the chicken coop, and disappeared.  The female, with complete aplomb, merely turned her head and looked back, as if to say "you all right down there?", and settled down on the window sill.  I laughed myself silly.

However, they did spend quite a bit of the rest of the afternoon sitting together in the window and snuggling.

Interestingly, my guess as to which one was the male and which one was the female was correct.  I'd never have known for sure if I hadn't caught them mating.  If all goes well, we should have another batch of vulture chicks soon.