anne is in lavender

bonnie is in blue

February 11, 2007

Having watched Franca's progress over these years, I am just tickled silly that she has you for a mom.  You and your TLC have done wonders for the psyche of that girl.  I know how much you have wanted her to feel better about everything in her life, and to have reached this point where she would respond to a question with her foot up and then willingly step is nothing short of a miracle.  To step to Bill's shoulder, of her own accord, is an even bigger miracle.  Deep inside you clearly  have a Grey heart.  All greys should have the kind of life you provide.

Good for you.  Good for Frankie.

February 10. 2007

Franca has had a couple breakthroughs in the last little while.  The first came while Bill was here for a two week holiday at the end of Jan beginning of Feb…..Frankie was out and about having a good time and Bill went over to her and asked her how she was doing, normally she would just look at him and if she judged him to be too close she would bite, but not this time.  This time she looked deep into his eyes for a moment and then climbed onto his shoulder!!!!  She was quite happy there and Bill stayed close to her cage in case she suddenly felt scared.  She sat on Bills shoulder for about 10 minutes during which time she looked often into his eyes as if she was reading him, then when she had enough she just stepped off onto her cage.  This was a major thing for Frankie, she has never trusted people in general and men in particular.  When she went back to her cage Bill thanked her for trusting him enough to ride his shoulder and we both gave her lots of praise, she was pleased, she wagged her tail and fluffed up.  Bill later commented “she has such depth, her eyes are so intense she is not like any of the others”
 
Today, during dinner I was discussing the food with Frankie, she was on the table picking through the veggies, and I asked her if she would like to go see what I had put in her food bowl, she looked at me and put out her foot!  So I offered her my hand and she stepped up willingly without hesitation, it was entirely her own decision, she stood on my hand while Bill and I gave her lots of praise and then I asked if she wanted to go to her food bowl, she told me she did so I took her there and stepped her onto the perch.  Now I know most birds will “step-up” but Frankie is terrified of hands, the times I have stepped her have been onto my arm while hiding my hand, and even then it was mostly a situation where moving her quickly was required……I don’t force her to step just for training or because I want her to……for Frankie that would be counter-productive.  It has taken years but she is making her own decisions and she is happy, that is what I want for her.

February 8, 2007

Once in a blue moon I give Frankie a tiny bit of cheddar cheese because she loves it so much, the last time she had it was months ago when I medicated her.  Well I gave her a little bit yesterday and she was very excited, Pippin watched carefully and was very interested.  So today I brought his dinner in and just to see what he would do I topped it with a couple tiny squares of cheese…..I have never seen him move so fast, he was standing at the door of his big cage hopping up and down and when I wheeled his sleep cage over and opened the door to the big cage, he jumped right into the small cage before I could even ask for a step, the cheese was inhaled
 

January 12, 2007

Dinner was all done with and all four Feathers were ready for bed, Frankie was yawning, Smokey had already gone into his cage and was snuggling down for the night, Pippin was full and ready for a snuggle and then Chico pipes up with “I want a nut, ok baby?” I replied Ok Chico I’ll get you a nut and her response was “Ok, good, I like nuts, ok baby, ok?”  Then she proceeded to ask Frankie if she wanted a nut, which got them all hopping up and down because after all the talk about nuts everybirdie though they should get a nut.  I handed out five nuts….yes five, I know I have four Greys, but Frankie also had decided by then she wanted scratches too so she hurled her first nut onto the floor, got her scratches, and then demanded and received her nut.  All are tucked in now.  Now it is time for meeeee…and the dogs, and Coco and cleaning up….its all good! :>))
 

January 5, 2007

January is Fitness Month on our Canadian Shopping Channel and that is very amusing to Smokey…..not to say Smokey is into fitness, he really is the most un-athletic little being I have ever met.  He does however enjoy watching TV, he has the best seat in the house when he climbs to the top perch on his play top as it puts him at eyelevel with the TV set.  He gets up there and watches all those exercisers and makes comments like “Come on then” and “Look at that!”   Yesterday however I peeked into the Feathers Room and there was Smokey…..exercising!!  It seems he really likes the sales pitch for those little personal trampolines, along with five people bouncing and jumping in the background accompanied by just the right music to make one want to bounce and jump right along with them, and there was Smokey matching them bounce for bounce, wing flip for jump.  Must have been exhausting as he tucked himself into bed without any complaint when the time came.

December 21, 2006

We are working like crazy…or rather I am, the Feathers are making the work, Zari is passed out in front of the fire and Daisy is sleeping, Coco is taking great pleasure in tackling me when I walk down the corridor and is NOT pleased that a dog has invaded Her territory.
 
Daisy is hobbling around, I have to keep her bandage dry….so she has a little plastic bootie for her outside trips, I am keeping her in a crate mostly since the stitches are between the toes on her front foot, exactly the place that the toes splay when she waddles around, so the stitches can easily rip out, yuck!  She has antibiotic capsules to take every twelve hours, and Metacam for pain and inflammation management every 24 hours, so I give her the pills morning and night and the Metacam at around 2pm….I am also going to give her some probiotics while she is on antibiotics
 
The poor thing, first thing in the morning (that would have been around 6:30am thanks to Zari) yesterday her foot looked slightly swollen about an hour later it looked really swollen and I called the vet (at 8:30am) got an 11am appt. by which time it was grossly swollen and a huge red pus filled lump had risen.  It is weird how fast it happened, Dr Heather said that it is a Basset thing, that they do have a really high pain threshold, and likely she stepped on the sharp thorn/wood a week ago, but they don’t show it until it is past the point of being simple.  So when the infection is spreading throughout their body and the pus filled injury has become really bad then they start to show that they hurt, just like she did Tuesday when I asked Bill to carry her down stairs because she was limping.  I inspected her foot then, but there was no sign of anything, she didn’t make a fuss when I poked and prodded,  and it wasn’t swollen, so I guessed she had played too much and twisted it.
 
Yesterday was tough, as I had to lift her quite a few times, like when I picked her up from the vets, into the car, out of the car (and she was still groggy), then up the three steps to go do her business and back down twice before I left her for the night.  And into the crate as well a few times.  She is not light, Dr Heather says she is 43 and a half pounds.  The drive to and from the vets to pick Daisy up was weird, I have never driven that road in the dark, and I don’t like it.  The Feathers handled it all very well, although they were not impressed, but once I had Daisy in the crate I just went back to them and did the cage cleaning and tucked them in for the night, they were a little late (7:30), but they did eat well and no one was too upset.  They did after all score a squash and chicken ball for dinner.
 
Well I am just taking a five min break to type this as I have a complete clean of the Feathers room on schedule for today and I am mostly done, just need to wash the other half and then wipe down all the coulters/shelves to get rid of birdie dust.  I even scrubbed off the GAG and then hung it outside and hosed it off, and have washed all their cage covers……so back to work
 

December 16, 2006

Coco drew me a bath in the whirl tub last night…..unfortunately she used only cold water and left a bunch of her toys in there.  She also must have paddled in the bath because there were wet kitty marks all over the floor.
 
It was pretty funny, I went downstairs to go to bed and I could hear water running so I checked the bathroom thinking maybe I had left the sink tap on when Coco asked for a drink.  But it was the huge whirlpool tub and it was totally full to the overflow….I guess she didn’t know how to turn it off.  She runs around opening all the drawers and cupboards she can reach. I guess it was just a matter of time before she turned on the tap.
 
December 15, 2006

Oh, this morning after serving breakfast I was tending to Chico’s “eats” and she was standing on her open door….she walked over to within a couple inches of my nose looked me squarely in the eyes and said “I want chicken!”

Chico is wonderful and she still wants chicken, she told me all about it this evening. The power went out around 3am and I went into the Feathers room, and then at 4am Zari started barking again, so I took them both out again using a flash light.  At 5am the power came back on and it started to get hot in the Feathers room so I went back to my own room, then the alarm clock decided to go off 45 mins before I usually get up.  So all in all not a restful night
 
December 14, 2006

Pippin has only been sleeping in the Feathers room since Nov., and the water only started dripping after the storm four weeks ago, it broke through the ceiling and dripped to the floor.  I thought I had it fixed then, but after the Monday storm it did it again, this time I had a bucket with towels in it to soften the sound just in case it leaked.  But it didn’t start until midnightish when I was awakened up by the sound of panicked flapping.   Then Smokey got panicked because Pip was panicked, even though he didn’t really know why, and they fed off each other.  Smokey dropped two flights and a tail feather, Pip was pretty beaten up by flapping his wings against the cage, perches and floor.  Poor Pip…he was so scared, but he didn’t even offer to bite me and I held him down so he couldn’t flap with bare hands, no time to grab a towel or anything, just open his cage and held him to keep him from damaging himself.  Once I had a firm grip on him he squirmed a little but then allowed me to kiss his little head and back while I talked to him and told him it’s ok.  I showed him the drip so he could see what it was and that it wasn’t to be scared of, but the sound, muffled even, was still scary he stayed long and skinny for quite a while after I let him go.  When I was sure he would be ok for a few moments I ran upstairs and fetched him and Smokey a mug of juice with Rescue Remedy and some Chico Bread and an orange.  I was pretty relieved when they both ate and drank.
 
The Girls were fine, they were concerned about the flapping but they stayed on their sleep perches, and even though I did open up all the cage covers and had the lights on, they were not interested in eating or drinking, just getting back to bed!  Chico watched to make sure Pip was ok, then after about an hour of the lights being on etc. she started saying “Wanna go to bed!” and Frankie was wonderful she kept saying “Hi Pippin, its ok”, and “Shhhhhh” but she too after an hour started making very loud yawning sounds and clearing the throat noises.
 
December 5, 2006

After their dinner last night Bill and Mini Bill were sitting watching TV while I cleaned cages, and Bill decided he wanted an apple.  Of course he got one for Mini Bill too…..a whole one, that he held for Mini Bill….so there sits Bill and Mini Bill munching on their own individual apples watching TV.  It did take Mini Bill longer to finish his apple, but he sure had fun chewing, throwing bits and eating the entire apple.  Chico, Frankie and Pippin all were begging for apple too so Bill had to go and get another one to cut up for them
 

November 29, 2006

Pippin is nothing like Smokey.  He is actually very smart, show him something once and he has it.  He isn’t really talking yet, but he is trying, he tries “Frankiebird” and Helloooo and Mini Bill has taught him “Maaaaaaaaa!”.  But talking or not he answers me when I ask him a question, like today I showed him a heavy quiche dish with water in it and asked if he wanted it in his big cage for a bath, he fluffed his feathers and bobbed up and down vigorously didn’t know how his former people had been bathing him or if they had been bathing him even. I have been showering him like Frankie, which he seems to enjoy. 

This morning Chico demanded a bath (no she didn’t try drowning this time) so I spent the whole morning with them and they all got a bath.  Chico sat on the edge for a bit and splashed a little then off she went to eat more Chico Bread, Frankie almost emptied hers all over the place with her splashing but then she loves water.

Pippin evidently knows what a bath is and he immediately ran over and jumped in and waded around while hauling every toy in his big cage into the bath with him and killing it there, so not a lot of actual bathing was done, but he managed to get everything very wet, Smokey is still deciding if it is too soon in the month to have his once a month bath, of course if he decides today is the day then I will have to clean it for him first because he has dropped Chico Bread in it.
 

November 24, 2006

I was just going to take Zari out for her final trip, I had the outdoor lights on and Zari all hooked up, but as usual I looked out the door before going out…..and there on the deck railing just a few feet away was the Owl.  She was very easy to see since I had the spot lights on but that didn’t bother her at all, nor did the fact that I was standing inside the door with Zari on a leash watching her.  We stood there for about 15 minutes and watched her, she occasionally swiveled her head and looked directly at us, but mostly was just watching the yard…..quite relaxed too….she was standing on one foot all snuggled up like the Feathers do.  Then after 15 minutes Zari suddenly saw what I was looking at and barked, so I put her in her crate.  I thought the bark at such a close range would scare the Owl away, but no she didn’t care and didn’t even put her foot down. 

I watched her for about 10 more minutes and then she suddenly got very attentive to something in the yard, she put her foot down, moved forward a bit and stood tall very intently watching…it was really neat since I got to see her legs and talons….then she took off silently and swooped down toward the dog house.  I gave her a few moments and then went to see where she had gone so I could get the dogs outside.  She was sitting in the low branches of the Rose of Sharon tree just above the dog house so I talked to her and told her I’m just bringing the dogs out on leash.  She just sat there while I took both Zari and Daisy out, she didn’t care that we were only a few feet from her and that she was sitting at about shoulder height.  Then just before I turned off the lights I told her happy hunting, and left her to do her job.

November 18, 2006

The Babies are in bed and Bill is cleaning the kitchen.  I made a seafood smorgasbord for dinner…salmon, bass, prawns, yummy…and of course veggies and rice.  Frankie had four almonds, two broccoli, one carrot and one prawn and that was dinner for her…everyone else ate a ton more than that, specially Pip.    Tomorrow I make Chico’s favorite…CHICKEN and squash and we will give Bill his gifty.

November 18th, 2006

Mini Bill (Smokey) is teaching Pippin some bad habits and noises….Mini Bill is feeling a lot better than he has because he is now very much more active and vocal, AND he actually has stepped for me without trying to remove fingers.  Mini Bill is mad at me today though because “his Water” is not running, he calls the water feature “my Water” and he reminds me everyday to turn it on, but he put pomegranate in it and I have to clean it out.

November 13, 2006

Actually the dog house is a pretty good place to watch for prey and also to stay dry and out of the storms, it is always nice and dry and warm in there, no leaks.  You see rodents like compost, and all the berries that fall from the bitter cherry and mountain ash trees that are in the neighbors yard, plus rodents need to drink water every few hours or they die, so they scurry around eating the berries and run to our pond for a drink…..meanwhile the Owl sits calmly in the dog house where most people wouldn’t figure she would be much less rodents, and then when one scurries past the dog house all she has to do is jump out and there she has a snack, easy and simple.  Then if she wants a drink she flies to the bird bath that I keep clean every day and has a nice drink, I have seen her sitting on the pigeon feeder and on the bird bath.  I think that she has thoroughly checked out the yard and the comings and goings of the dogs and myself and of course the rodents.  The other times I saw her in the yard she seemed to fly up from the grass near the dog house area…but from where I was I couldn’t see the dog house so she very well could have been flying from the dog house.
 
When I went out with the flash light she mush have been farther back inside the dog house because I always check the dog house in my sweep of the yard, just in case “something” is in it….I expected maybe raccoons not an Owl, then I got a feeling something was looking at me and shone the light there again and she was standing in the doorway of the dog house.  She is big, she fit nicely in the doorway, as the light hit her her eyes lit up and I saw her very well, then she just calmly flew into a tree and waited for the dogs to come out and do their business.  She is wild of course, but many Owls are not that scared of people.  The other encounter I had with a Barred Owl I was able to photograph her in my front yard, I was within 5 feet of her, she was sitting on the picnic table, I talked to her the whole time and she just fixed those beautiful eyes on me and stayed there until she decided to hop into a tree but still only a few feet from me and she stayed there the whole day from 10am until 4pm just napping and watching the goings on.

November 12, 2006

Pipsqueak sat down and inhaled three slices of Chico Bread this morning and that was after his 7 grain cooked cereal and little bowl of seed, nuts and pellets….right now he is inhaling a quarter of a pomegranate, two small grapes, some bean and rice mix, blackberries, cranberries, apple and broccoli coleslaw, oh and I forgot his little square of Kamut sprouted grain toast with almond butter….a growing boy is Pip! 

We have a dog house in the yard, Allison gave it to us for our original Ridgeback, Sunny, years ago we were living in my first house at the time and we have moved it with us as it is really nice, all lined with cedar to keep the nasties out.  None of the dogs have ever used it.  It is big.
 
I have been seeing a huge Barred Owl in the yard lately, she is gorgeous a full 4 foot wing span at least and totally silent in flight.  I love Barred Owls I had a really close encounter with one in our last home.  Anyway this evening I was taking Daisy out and checked the yard with my flashlight as usual, I scanned by the dog house and the rest of the yard and then just before I let Daisy out, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something in the dog house I shone the flashlight over there and the Barred Owl is sitting there in the doorway of the dog house.  How cool is that!!!  She must have been using it for some time since every time I saw her she seemed to be flying up from the lawn area near the dog house, but she must have actually been in the dog house. 

November 10,2006

Yesterday Pippin watched me clean the aquarium…..he found it immensely interesting, all the water and the fishes and the “help” that Coco gave me until she almost landed in the tank and was removed and shut in my bedroom for her own safety.  Plus I’m not sure the fish would have been pleased to have a kitten doing the dogpaddle in their tank.  Frankie continues to be the “big sister/mentor” to Pippin, she has it together enough now that she is able to hold her usual nerves in check when Pip is in the Bird Room.  When Pip is with the adults I place him near Frankie, and she becomes very calm, she has taught him about the water bottle, how to eat asparagus, that certain toys are great to play with.  She is in constant vocal contact with Pippin, just this morning she went onto the windowsill which is a favorite thing of hers, and she had a good look out at the weather, but the whole time she was talking to Pippin or whistling to him as she marched up and down the sill.
 
This morning Pippin was not up when I went in to serve his breakfast, he was still on his padded sleeping shelf all sleepy eyed, not too surprising since it was a really stormy night and very dark this morning.  I went to him and he put his head down for scratches and made his little baby noises, then for the first time unprompted he stepped up onto my hand, so I carefully brought him out of the cage and we cuddled a bit with him still standing on my hand.  Now I know most people would say so what….but Pippin has been through a lot in his very short life so I am not pressing him for anything, I am letting him make the decisions on contact.  I want Pip to understand that he is safe here and is not going to be bounced to yet another home, to build trust.
 
Well off to bake another batch of Chico Bread…..I have a lot of munchers here!    

November 7, 2006

Pip has learnt how to drink from his bottle!!  He watched Frankie once and then I held the bottle for him and he drank and drank, then I put the bottle in the holder and he went over to it and drank some more.  Frankie is being so sweet to Pippin, she keeps talking to him and telling him “Shhhhh, its ok” if he jumps.
 
WE have a breezy blue skyhole and a sunbeam in the Feathers room and yard so the dogs are outside…not whining. 

October 30, 2006

I let Pippin sit and watch his new sisters and brother today while I cleaned the room he is in.  He got comfortable pretty fast and started making all his sounds, Chico watched him intently and when he had gone through about a dozen different sounds she said “Wow”.  Frankie was really nice and she was the first to whistle softly to him and she kept saying “shhhhh” when he was a little scared.  Smokey just got really animated

October 25, 2006

We are into pumpkin and pomegranate season…..Pippin loves Pom’s and last night Bill was home so we had the ever demanded chicken which I chop fine and mash into a big ball of Hubbard squash, and Pip loved that too, and the carrots he ate all those, he is a good little eater, and eats easily double what the adults eat.  OH!  And he took his first chomp of a Brainiac Block today.
 
Remember we had that lovely big black bear last year?  Well this year we have a cougar

A cougar, how cool. 
 
Yeah, he eats a lot now... but if he's anything like my boy, he won't do that forever... except for the fact the girls will be good role models.

Oh I fully expect Pippin to continue eating as well as he does now, maybe a little less in quantity as he matures (if he keeps up this quantity he will be the size of an eagle), but I expect him to be accepting of food and eat normally….and that is three quarters of the battle, expect problems and one has problems, expect normal and that is what one gets, they are so sensitive that they clue into those things really fast.
 
And of course he has the girls and Smokey and they are very accepting of food because I expect them to be.  Cathy even said that they all told her they love the food they get here.
 
A Cougar is cool…..but also rather dangerous.  Cougar don’t like to be around people and when they are (in an established neighborhood) it generally means that they are not skilled in hunting so they have come to eat house cats dogs, and other easy prey, this type of cougar will also attack humans given the chance and if they are hungry enough.  Every couple years we get a Cougar attack on a person somewhere in BC.  Basically if you see the Cougar you are ok as long as you continue to face it and don’t run, if you know it is around and don’t see it, it is likely hunting you because the prey never sees the Cougar before it attacks.

October 20, 2006

Here's a shot of Pippin.

He's cute, cute, cute... and he looks like he's afraid of nothing.

Isn’t he though?!  Last night I had his cage covered for bed, the radio off, newspaper replaced and over night snack in place, and he did his sweet  “aaaaaaa” sound and put his foot up, well he is only now learning the step up so of course I took advantage of the invitation and stepped him.  Now he did the same the night before, and it consisted of stepping up sitting for a moment then stepping down, which he repeated three times then went to bed.  However this time, he stepped up and put his head down for scratches, I scratched and he got gushy then before I knew it he was on my shoulder being cuddly and getting scratches and preening and getting more scratches, and he managed to stay up an extra hour!  He really really loves being scratched under his beak in that bare patch, and all around his jaw.  And he is molting like crazy
 
He seems to be afraid of navy clothing…..but that is pretty much it.

October 19, 2006

Chico has been unmercifully teasing Coco.  Coco hates to have me out of her sight so when I go into the Bird Room she sits on the sill of the big windows that look into the bird room from the front hall.  So Madam decides to climb down the outside of her cage to within a foot from the glass at eye level with Coco reaches over and taps on the glass, which made Coco jump so she laughed bounced up and down and tapped again.  She spent the next half hour very deliberately teasing Coco, saying things like “do you want the beak?”  “what you doing ?”  “kitty, kitty, kitty…..kooky kitty cat”, “here’s the Beak!”

October 18, 2006

Sounds like a little darling.  At least he doesn't insist on sitting on your arm while you're working, and then having your arm itch like crazy because his little toe nails scratch.  Or better yet, sitting on your hand so you can't do anything at all.  Or poop on your keyboard. 

He does enjoy a good preening session while on my shoulder….and I have to sit pretty still so he doesn’t fall off as he has little balance with no tail, but then he puts his head down and wants scratches, he really likes having his jaw and under his beak rubbed.  Of course we are still only getting used to each other so I’m not pushing him to do anything as I want him to feel totally comfortable and at home here.

October 17, 2006

I finally got the business cards stapled to the promo page for the conference…..I tried to do it while Pippin was out playing, HA!  Not a good idea, he leaped off his cage to come see what I was doing, and then proceeded to “help” by pulling the business cards out of their box and spreading them around on the desk, then by standing on the promo pages so they didn’t get away.  I gave up and played with him instead until he got tired and wanted to nap.

October 15, 2006

He is still doing the leaping off the playtop act, did it again today, luckily the floor is not only carpeted but I have padding down as well, he managed to launch this time.  I think he decided to go get the yogurt himself, I put it away as he ate more than any normal bird should in a week….sure likes his yogurt does Pippin.  The little guy is going to have to grow in a lot of feathers if he thinks he is going to fly, then he is going to have to learn to land properly.  Once he is moved to the Bird Room I guess I’ll have to pad the floor there too, it is laminate not carpet like the room he is quarantined in.
 
He is scared of jean jackets and earrings….may be something from his past.  He is molting big time and to get an idea of how badly clipped his wings are a couple of the molts are just the shaft about an inch of shaft no feathering at all on them. 

October 15, 2006

He had a nice time playing this afternoon, had a shower, discovered all sorts of toys with the appropriate excited sounds, and ate pomegranate and yogurt from a spoon on my shoulder then chipped a wood foot block, also on my shoulder, so he knows how to chip away at wood to keep his beak nice.  I have put him back in the cage for a bit while I clean up the kitchen and prepare food.

October 14, 2006

How come you didn’t mention that baby Greys have a death wish, and will leap from anywhere anytime even if they have no primary or secondary flights and no tail??? :>))

Oh, did I forget to mention that? 
 
I thought you would remember that from Chiahna's baby days.

Remember I told you that Chiahna had a hollow leg and I couldn't figure out where he was putting all the food?  I guess that's what the little ones do.
 
She sounds just precious.  I guess you think she's a she... 
 
I don’t remember you telling me that Chiahna was totally reckless……this baby sure is, no sense of self preservation at all, will leap from the cage top with great abandon and just try misting him, that really gets him excited he opens his wings and flaps and makes baby sound and totally enjoys it….then he feels invincible and leaps across the cage top playing in the mist until he works up so much momentum that he figures he can fly……not so given the condition of his wing feathers.

Chico goes all out, she is a maniac and doesn’t seem to consider that there could be consequences, that is part of her confidence and I think the only reason she survived the time she was lost in Prince Rupert.  Frankie on the other hand is a little too concerned about body and limb and plans everything, so when she has a spontaneous moment I give huge praise

October 7, 2006

Pippin continues to do well and he is a little charmer….and totally klutzy.  I have purchased him a Island Maui Playtop, I know he is too young yet to let him live in it and he still has until mid November before the quarantine ends, so since the Maui will not fit in the room he is in he is still in the smaller cage.  I plan to let him visit the big cage on his terms once he is in the bird room, but will keep him in the small cage until I feel he is safer and more agile.  He wants to run and bounce and loves to be out of the cage on the playtop, which is great, but the small cage doesn’t have that much room on its playtop.
 
He has no sense of self preservation it seems, just this morning I announced myself before entering his room, he started calling to me then I entered and he got so excited he jumped from his perch straight to the floor of the cage, luckily it was only six inches, then he ran over to me.  I will pad the bottom of the big cage with foam under towels under paper once he goes in the big cage of course.
 
All in all I think he is glad to be here, he has slowed the eating down to double and a bit what the adults eat :>))  I think the first few days when he did nothing but eat he may have been making up for a poor diet and major stress.  He regurgitates for me, and calls to me and the adult Greys, and he loves scratches and having his beak cleaned when he has food all over it.

October 6, 2006

DNA results are back.  Pippin is a Boy!!!  Dr. McDonald was right again!

October 5, 2006

Well I checked with Bobbie since she used to breed, and she said that babies do eat tons and they need calorie dense foods to help them grow.  But Pippin is considerably older than Chiahna was…Pip is 13 months….I told Bobbi Pip’s history and she feels that there simply wasn’t time for a proper weaning, and that makes sense because Pip is very baby-like.
 

October 4, 2006

We have decided to call him/her Pippin.  The name she came with, Zazu, doesn't work since we have Zari the Ridgeback, and her name gets shortened to Zaz, which is exactly what Zazu would get shortened to, I'm confused enough as it is:>))  Pippin really responds to the name, when I first tried it for her she looked straight at me and bobbed up and down, then my SIL visited and said Hello Pippin, and Pippin immediately responded to her.

Little Pippin is so sweet and gentle, I can’t imagine what the people at the pet store she was dumped in were doing to her that caused them to deem her a biter and not saleable.  This evening she had so much veggie chop on her beak and she is still in the clumsy baby stage, so she was having no luck wiping it off, so I offered to help and she put her beak in my hand and went “ooooo” while I wiped her beak.
 
And on another note…I had always wondered if it was possible for them to get wood stuck up in their beaks what with all the wood chewing they do…..now I know the answer!  Of course it was Chico who had to demonstrate, like of the three of them all taking baths and who tries to drown herself….Chico…so I had to do minor surgery on Chico….silly girl had chewed her block in just the right way to get wood chips stuck/lodged in her upper beak, I went to check how their lunch was going down and I noticed she seemed to be tonguing the inside of her beak, so I pried open the beak and saw what the problem was and pried the wood out with a birdie pencil.  She is fine now eating Chico Bread and I gave her a drink of water.  And after dinner she went into overdrive dancing and singing and telling everyone what to do, so I don’t think she is any the worse for wear…….
 
Well pretty soon I’ll get into a rhythm with the quarantine situation and I’ll have more or better arranged time to be on the computer, right now I’m just learning about Pippin and she about me, and one of the things I’ve learnt is that she eats all day, constantly, everything I give her……..  I have to make more Chico Bread tomorrow and Friday or we will run out.

Remember I told you that Chiahna had a hollow leg and I couldn't figure out where he was putting all the food?  I guess that's what the little ones do.
 
She sounds just precious.  I guess you think she's a she... 
 
For a bird as smart as Chico she certainly behaves in some odd ways.  I'm surprised that she didn't bite you for trying to pry open her beak.  I wouldn't try that with Chiahna.  I can throw him around and twirl him till his head spins, but I don't think I would try to open his beak.  And he isn't snuggly.  I thought maybe he would be at first, but he decided, like most greys, nope, don't do that mom.
 

October 3, 2006

I have her cage in a room away from things for quarantine, and the blind is partially closed so she can’t see the dogs in the yard, plus her sleeping platform area has a small partial cover to provide a safe place for her to hide if it all becomes too much.  I have been working in her room with my lap top and phone so she see me and hears me but I’m not looking directly at her or trying to interact unless she specifically requests it.  She has been calling me when I’m not in the room, and the other Greys are calling back and forth to her and she readily responds to them.  Often when I enter the room she clings to the cage and does the babybird act, but calms after I sit down and talk to her, then she feels comfortable playing (playing is by herself at this point, don’t want to scare her) and eating.  Some noises, being new, are scary, but she has stopped acting scared if she hears a dog go down the outside stairs, she doesn’t even stop eating now.

October 1, 2006

Saturday evening our Avian Vet called and asked us to adopt a Grey that was surrendered to her.  She believes that most people are not Grey people, and it is a huge honor that she feels we are :>))  Anyway this baby was bought by an old man who then went into a home, baby Grey was then dumped at a pet store who deemed him/her un-saleable since she/he bites and placed her in a back room for a few months in bad conditions, then a couple on vacation met her and found that she is actually quite handleable if one respects her, they took her from the store.  Unfortunately the wife found she had an extremely adverse reaction to the Grey dust, and try as she might nothing helped so in tears they surrendered her to the vet, its very sad and they were very upset.  That is the history as I know it and is where we came in, we had already decided some months ago that we would like to adopt a fourth Grey, and baby Grey, at 13 months old, is just perfect.  So….now I will have the experience of a baby.

September 29, 2006

Last night, being a staunch defender of her home, Coco drove off a pair of raccoons that were looking in the window on their way up the grape vine to get the remaining grapes.  The first time they climbed up the vine she flew at the window growling, hissing and pounding on the window, they were so startled that they beat a hasty retreat, where they had a discussion about “hey that is only a cat, what’s to be afraid of” and after a while they decided to give it another try.  Again Coco hurled herself at the window letting out blood curdling growls, I removed her (not laughing at all) after disengaging her claws from the windowsill and put her back on the bed, but she would not have that, no raccoons were going to be allowed to peer in “her” window and she attacked again.  Now if she was Zari’s size she would have had raccoon for a snack, she is fierce when defending her space.  She always wakes me if there is something outside the window or on the roof….I wonder what she would do if a bear was out there like last year.

September 27, 2006

A not so nice surprise this morning…..Smokey does his usual “Hi Mom” as he peeks out the gap in his cover and I go to take the cover off and Ewwwwwwwwwwwww….all soft squishy poop all over the cover and on my hands, and not a small one either, the full morning bomb splotted all over and running down in great globs, I guess he launched it from his hanging on the bars peeping out position.   So his nibs’ cover is now in the washing machine.  Meanwhile Madam Frankie is very quietly making numerous trips between the windowsill and my cereal bowl, cleaning out all the flakes from my bowl and leaving a trail of crunchy crumbs wherever she goes.  And Chico is off marching across the floor on a great adventure muttering about “poop on the beak, poopbeak”….all while I am trying to remove poop from Smokey, from Smokey’s cage, from the floor and myself.  I have a feeling that Chico is about to give Smokey a new nickname……”Poopbeak”

There are at least six Sharp shinned Hawks flying around here they have been here since Monday, probably the parents and babies from the nest.  Yesterday morning they were having a huge argument with the crows and were also dive bombing each other and a couple Coopers Hawks who were hanging around too, so we have an aerial show going on.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner are in hiding and the Crows and Stellar’s are doing their best to drive the hawks away.  It’s pretty interesting.

September 20, 2006

The downside or upside depending who's point of view one subscribes to.... when sitting on Mommy's knee eating Chico Bread if you aim really carefully you can get a big warm poopie to go splot right through the holes in the top of the Crocs onto the bare toes and mush down into the insoles...then of course you run off chuckling.

Or you can step in a warm one on the kitchen floor, or have a warm one run down your back. So many ways to enjoy poopie.

True….one of my all time favorites is smack on top of the head as the Mommy servant dutifully cleans the birdie house before bed, specially after saying to the pooper “now don’t poop on Mommy I have to pick up all your papers and wash your house”, it is extra special when said pooper then giggles and says “Opps! sorry”  (like heck she’s sorry)  and this is my Frankie…..not the naughty one.

Tis the season!!!  Bill just went by a grocery store in town and saw they were putting out the mini pumpkins so he figured he would get six, but then since he was there maybe a dozen…..he ended up with two dozen all with grown in the USA stickers on them….pretty amazing really he never looked at that before so he would buy things from Chile, Mexico etc., now he reads every sticker…if its for the feathers it has to be safe

August 1, 2006

I live in a zoo! Smokey is barking like a dog and then saying “Zari! No, Zari shut up!” Frankie is practicing “I’m a Monkey bird” in Chico’s voice, Chico is yelling about “Grip a Chicken” her latest play on Get A Grip……and Zari…..Zari is playing with a potato on the back deck…the only normal one is Daisy and she is passed out in the sun on the front deck snoring

July 29, 2006

Chico is on her new “great big Get A Grip”, she has just discovered that she can go through the holes which she couldn’t do on the old prototype she had before…..she has also eaten Chico Bread on the get a grip and has pooped on the get a grip

July 28, 2006

In order to get some nutrients into Mattie tonight, I took your advice and bought some ugh, dead cow, cooked it well and minced it and added it to cooked 5 grain cereal. NO, I WON'T EAT THAT.

I took the beef/cereal, (the cereal had turned into mush at this point) and added maple syrup.  NO, I WON'T EAT THAT.

I took the beef/cereal, maple syrup and added chicken and stars. NO, I WON'T EAT THAT.

I took the beef/cereal, maple syrup, chicken and stars and added orange juice concentrate, a favorite on occasion. NO, I WON'T EAT THAT.

I took the beef/cereal, maple syrup, chicken and stars, orange concentrate and added crushed watermelon. MAYBE.....Well... OK...... A full 1/4 teaspoon was eaten.

Grrrrr.

A couple of quick shots of the baby, Pippin.

July 27, 2006

I just got one of the new GAG’s hung much to everyone amusement. It looks great and hangs high enough that Madam will not be able to climb to the floor, of course she will still get to the floor by climbing down her cage, which she did yesterday and I caught her strolling over to Smokey saying “Hi baby!”

July 26, 2006

Frankie BTW is being very naughty…one of her skills is perfectly copying others voices, I can’t tell the difference if she answers me in Bill’s voice, anyway yesterday she didn’t know I was within earshot and I heard her practicing a ton of the things Chico says, in Chico’s voice, and then repeating them in her own voice and giggling, then she did a couple renditions of Smokey and giggled….so now I know she does that I have to wonder just how many times I have answered Chico or Smokey….but it wasn’t them

July 25, 2006

Mattie has pulled all the feathers out of her left leg.

You know....when Frankie removes blood feathers and I can't find them it is because she eats them.....I found that I can minimumize the damage if I up her protein in her diet.

Protein AND the Omega's....I increased both....but initially just the protein and it worked, I also gave her a few more nuts, that is why I started using cashews she needed them but I wanted to avoid as much fat as possible and cashews are lower than other nuts.

Try a little organic beef well cooked of course.....I know you hate the idea, but most parrots in the wild are opportunistic feeders, and that means road kill.

I know that Frankie has no qualms about sneaking over to a plate with food on it selecting the biggest piece of meat grabbing it and running off very fast. She was so funny one time, we had roast for guests, and it was sliced up on a server, along comes Frankie didn't see or hear her coming, but glanced around at exactly the right time to see her grab a slice as big as herself and run. Of course running was a little hard since she had to make herself very tall to keep from tripping over the slice of beef, when she noticed that I had spotted her she giggled....but kept running. Then a tug of war ensued, the slice of beef being the prize....I was laughing so hard that I ended up letting her have a third of it, and she ate it too.

Chiahna finally said, " I love you." yesterday, but haven't hear it since. He also says, "Don't bite me." and "Let go..........let go.........let go."

July 20, 2006

After we got off the phone I went into the kitchen only to find that someone, and I do know who that someone was, had helped themselves to perpetrating mayhem, for what I saw when I got there was that all the soak containers full of almonds, kamut and pumpkin seeds were now on the floor along with all the water and their contents. A bottle of barbecue sauce and the chef's knife, the paring knife and a few other odds and ends were in the mix as well.

The particular someone responsible for this mess was behaving in a very sassy and arrogant way by flipping her crest around and flashing her wings and watching to see what I would do. I knew that she knew that what she had done was distressing me, and she flipped and stomped and flashed to clearly make the point that she couldn't care less what I thought.

July 19, 2006

My little friend George keeps dropping by looking for more hand outs…I sure hope he remembers where he is hiding all those nuts! And he is bring his little Georgelettes with him, its almost as if he has a second batch of babies.

AND That Daisy is too smart....I gave George some nuts and then shut Daisy in the house leaving the slider open only a little for air because she tends to lie right under the nuts and that scares the birds off. Well I was in the kitchen and glanced out the window, slowly the slider started sliding open, then out pops Daisy onto the deck..... She knows how to use her paw to push the slider open! She can also unlatch the gate into the living room if I forget to lock it and then she pulls the gate toward herself (it swings that way only) to get into the living room.

July 14, 2006

So Chico has two of those Smart Crocks clamped to the top outside of her cage, one holds her dinner the other has her juice .... well since the weather turned warm she has enjoyed ice in her juice. However being Chico, she has taken it one step further, she fishes the ice out of her juice carries it over to her food and places it in the food bowl, then eats her food around the ice cube...I guess she likes really cold food

 
July 8, 2006

Last night I decided to let Chico and Frankie make their own decisions about contact. Chico was pretty keen and stomped over to the feed station and reached to Frankie and Frankie started reaching nicely, then Chico pulled back. Frankie then tried to initiated touching, but she was not calm like yesterday, instead she was reaching and fluffing and saying “hellooooo”, acting just like she does when she is trying to lure a person in to try touching her so she can bite and then run off laughing. Chico must have recognized this from the start when she pulled back, so at least she understands that Frankie has moods that can change like the wind. I don’t worry about Chico hurting Frankie, she is used to other birds contact. Frankie has never had contact with other birds and she is much bigger than Chico, so I worry about Frankie being mean to Chico or hurting her. I am going to keep a close eye on this, it may never develop into anything as Chico may decide that Frankie is not to be trusted, and I would have to go along with that conclusion……especially when she is hormonal.

This morning we had an impromptu cleaning of the Feathers room. There was so much water on the floor from the baths that I had to mop anyway so I just went ahead and mopped everything.

Smokey actually was so keen on bathing today that he did it for 45 mins while I was in the room assisting Frankie with her bath. Usually Smokey won't bathe until I leave the room. So we have two soggy parrots, and one very, very full of Chico Bread, parrot who seemed to feel that the whole spectacle was a breakfast show staged just for her dining pleasure

July 6,2007

Chiahna is doing well, but I wish I could have more interaction with him. He likes to either be in the kitchen on his contraption over the sink or hanging on his boing from the ceiling in the center of the kitchen so that I have to either duck under all the toys hanging there, or push them aside. When I put him outside he flies back in.

I don't like having him on me because he insists on sitting on my right forearm. It's very hard to use a mouse, brush your teeth, wash the floor and type when you have a bird on your forearm. I have moved him off a thousand times and he continues to slide back down no matter how many times I remove him. He also preens while on me and I must be allergic to the dust because he makes me sneeze. But he is cute as the dickens. And he's picking up words like crazy. The word of the week is brock o LA also pronounced broc KOHL a and the other day he started with broc ka LA ka la. He was trying to say broccoli. But he doesn't know the meaning of anything besides water/water, and cake. He knows cake. If I'm somewhere where they have cake I bring him home a little taste and he gobbles it up like a vacuum. But those are the only two things he's sure of. Although yesterday when I was trying to get Mattie to eat, pushing the spoon against her beak he did say, "Open ... Open".

An Aside

I have a CAG, Frankie, who is feather abusive. Frankie’s feather abuse has improved over time, when we first adopted her she was near naked, and mutilating, she would also pull feathers out by the roots and her skin was raw and flaky. I immediately vetted her and she tested positive for Giardia which was treated. I routinely test every six months as Giardia can re-occur easily in Frankie with stress being the trigger. Hormone’s = stress for her, and this season was bad.

Frankie’s feather abuse has changed for the better in that she no longer mutilates, and she now Chops feathers rather than pulling them out by the roots. She does feather abuse habitually to some extent, she was doing it for seven years before we adopted her with no relief or treatment, now she will chop a feather or two when my husband comes home for the weekend after being away all week at work, however if I can get to her first and mist her I can usually head it off. In Frankie’s case a misted Frankie is a wood chewing Frankie, and a wood chewing Frankie does not bother with feathers.

I am very pleased with her improvement, but was always concerned by her left wingpit (this is where she had opened up the skin) which was still raw looking and very red at times and seemed to bother her, she never re-grew feathers there except for one which she finds to be really annoying. About two months ago I started giving her Black Cherry Juice (R.W. Knudsen brand, just the cherries, not from concentrate and nothing else added, non-sweetened), each morning and evening she gets a little mug of the juice I hold it for her and she is allowed as much as she wants to drink, she in fact demands it.

After a week of this I was sure that I noticed a change in her wingpit, after two months I KNOW there is a change, her wingpit has not been flaming red and raw during this entire time, and she has stopped “digging” at it. Another plus is that she is undergoing a heavy molt and with her that often results in feather abuse because they itch, but I have noticed that she is calmer and she has not chopped off the new feathers in frustration because they itch. Black Cherry is reputed to help inflammation (and gout), and in this case it has helped Frankie with her wingpit and molt itchiness.

July 7, 2006 

Last night I am doing the feeding of dinners and cleaning of cages and turn my back for one second and Chico and Frankie have scooted down the outside of their cages onto their feed stations and are jointly hanging leaning toward each other beaks open as if they were going to hook beaks….no fluffed feathers or slicked down feathers on either part, they simply looked as if they were going to “shake hands” and say Hi. It was totally a joint effort no one seemed to initiate it. I had no idea what they were doing so I stepped in and stopped the transaction, they may well have been being friendly, but in Frankie’s hormonal state I don’t know how she would have reacted if they had actually joined beaks, and we are too far from the avian vet to experiment although Frankie just ignores it when Chico lands on Frankie’s house after flying. I know Chico has been caged with another Grey and that she is very maternal toward Frankie so her intentions likely were good…..in fact after I stopped them she got quite determined to re-initiate the contact so I had to put her in her house for safe-keeping.

And even more weird…..I just took shaved-naked-weird-looking Mikey (old cat) outside for a bit in the shade all wrapped up in his blanket so he didn’t catch a chill, and along comes Zari, the lion hunting dog, now these two have always liked each other, but today Zari decides Mikey needs washing, so just like a Mother dog she starts licking Mikey all over his head and face which is the only place he still has much fur left. Not the outing a grumpy old fart of a 19 year old cat had expected, but he put up with it for a while head butting Zari and purring until it got too much then he smacked her nose with a closed paw, good thing it was closed because he easily has the biggest cat feet and sharpest claws I have ever seen. I poor old guy weighs way too much, almost 20 pounds, and the vet thinks he may be diabetic which would account for his lack of weight loss even though he is on a diet.

Honey, if they both want to touch you really should have let them. Nothing could happen with you standing there. One shout and whatever it was would stop from their being startled. They know each other and it's only fair that they be free to socialize. They know what they're doing, especially since you didn't see any aggression.

I know….and in retrospect I wish I had let them touch, they both wanted to and they seemed to know what they were doing….I just didn’t know what they were doing, it’s my downfall. They have after all known each other for five years…..

Well. go apologize and tell them you were afraid and now you know that they know what they want to do and you will trust their judgement and see if you can't get them interested again.

Your putting Chico away may have sent a message that getting to know one another was a bad thing and not to do it.

Go see what you can do to repair this right away.

No problem there, if Chico thinks its a good thing there's no dissuading her....as I type she is quite determined to go see Frankie. Frankie is eating so it is likely not a good idea right now as Frankie and food are an item, but I think Chico knows that she is highly interested but is respecting Frankie's space....which results in a whole lot of chatting..

June 21, 2006

Chiahna is learning new words and making up words.  His favorite current conglomeration is not only a never before word, he has two different inflections depending on how he wants to say it.  'Broccola'.  It  is said with emphasis on the middle 'co' or with emphasis on the 'la'.  There is also 'tangers'. The original favorite word is rarely heard anymore and that is the combination of apple and cracker, ' crapple'. He loves to say 'bye bye', 'good bye' and 'see ya later' so much that it's driving me nuts.  For some reason he picked up something I only said once or twice which is 'buckle up for safety'.  Now he says 'buckle up' quickly so it sounds like one word.  For a while he was saying 'broccolup', but I haven't heard that in the last few days.  When I drop something, or knock something over, which in my tiny kitchen is several times a day he has learned to say 'whoop'.

When he wants to play he hangs upside-down on his ring and makes very bizzare and funny sounds.  I simply cannot imagine who makes those sounds when he's being tickled and rough-housed with. .

I must say one thing that I don't much care for.  He is getting to be a pretty good flyer and whenever I walk out of the kitchen he follows me in the air and lands on me.  Sometimes he just takes off and circles the living room to see if I'm there and if I'm not he returnes to the contraption in the kitchen.  If I take him with me when I'm putting on make-up he flys to me and tries to play with the different products.  But the thing I dislike most of all, the thing that makes me frustrated and the thing I seem to be unable to change is that he insists on sitting on my forearm.  It's very difficult to prepare their food when he's  wobbling on my arm, it's very difficult to wash dishes when he's on my arm, or to brush my teeth, or to eat a meal or to do ANYTHING with a wobbly bird on my arm.  He just doesn't seem to care.  I have been trying for three years to get him to stay on my shoulder, but he won't give up. 

I am all too aware that when you put a behavior on' extinction' learners try even harder with an 'extinction burst', but eventually they give it up.  Not this guy.  I just cannot stand having him on my arm and we battle this constantly.  I

But when he puts his feathers up... he's really pretty cute.

June 12, 2006                                            

Bill has a couple days off and he just got home. Frankie saw him arrive from her favorite “block watch perch”, she waited until he opened the front door, and then said loud and clear “Hi everybody!” which is what Bill usually says when he walks in…..she got it in ahead of him, and she knew it because she giggled. Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen making the Feathers lunches and was a little late in delivering them since I was waiting for Bill to arrive with the organic apples that they enjoy, this obviously was not going down too well with Smokey because after his usual pitiful cries of “Maaaaaaa”, he decided to kick it up a notch and he yelled “MAAAA! FEED ME!!!”

June 9, 2006

A few days ago I tried a new toy in Chico’s cage and she happily spent the day ripping and shredding creating a huge pile of debris. After her dinner she started her usual routine where she gets a short “second wind” and tears about talking non-stop asking questions that she requires answers to, telling Frankie and Smokey how good they are, and issuing orders about eating nuts and having a drink, while I clean their cages before bed. I decided that since the toy was new I would remove it over night and give it back in the morning if she still wanted it, so I started undoing the quick link and she ran over and grabbed it holding on tight with her toes, so I said to her “don’t touch your toy hey??” and she nodded vigorously so I left it alone and carried on cleaning with the intention of taking the toy out a bit later. After cleaning all three cages I once again returned to remove the toy, again Chico ran over and held on to it with her toes and this time she said “Don’t touch!” I said “really? I will give it back tomorrow” Chico held on tight and said “Mine….Chico’s!” Chico won….I left the toy in her cage and she finished destroying the next day.

The interesting thing is that she has never used the word “touch” before. She knows “Don’t” because she will often remind me things like “don’t forget the Chico Bread” or “I don’t see the dog”, and she knows “mine”, “I”, “my”, “you”, “your” and even “you’re” as in “you’re a kooky boy bird” (which she says to Smokey regularly) and she uses them correctly unless she is messing around. I can only think that my comment about don’t touch your toy must have really sounded right to her and she was able to equate “don’t touch” to me trying to take the toy because that is exactly what I was doing when I made the comment. She is so smart it is stunning and almost scary!

June 9, 2006

I was conversing with a lady yesterday and the topic of “larger than life” images of Grey’s came up. I remembered this Chico story and thought it would be fun for the Blog.

A while back I got a Calendar with photo’s of Greys for each month or the year, I thought Chico would find it interesting. But when we got to the month with the larger than life head shot of a Grey she got quite scared of it.

However, while the big beak on the calendar was deemed "scary", Chico thinks nothing of making the call of the Bald Eagle, really loud, which brings the resident eagles over to see what new eagle is invading their territory... as the eagles swoop by the window glaring at her with their big yellow eyes (not to mention that huge yellow beak) she hops up and down in glee and yells "See! See!" quite pleased with herself and the effect her calls have. So there's no telling which beak is scary...personally I'd have guessed the live eagle would at least be as scary as the calendar photo, seems not!

I came back from my class the afternoon but was very tired since I haven't had much sleep with my late hours. I went to take a nap and heard Chiahna chattering all through it. When I got up I found Chiahna on Mattie's cage and Mattie nowhere in sight. She wasn't outside. I freaked when it occurred to me where she probably was and ran to the computer room as fast as I could... and there she was with the two mice opened and lying on the floor with one of them blinking it's red light at me like a turtle on it's back, the phone on the floor with buttons missing, AND transparencies from that last shoot all over the floor and all ripped apart. I have all the work on the light box covered to forestall such an event, but she uncovered everything.

She is currently locked outside. I may never let her back in.

May 27, 2006

I had to go to the grocery store today….again….because I need to make more “Chico Bread” since they are all eating like horses, I don’t know where they are putting it all. Whenever Chico’s bowl is empty, which is midway between breakfast and lunch, she starts making comments like “I don’t see my Chico Bread”, “I need Chico Bread” and my current favorite “Go get me some Chico Bread!”

As usual I told them where I was going before I left and Chico pipes up with “Don’t forget Chicken…. chicken and juice….nuts” as if she was helping me with my list So since I needed it anyway I got chicken, juice and nuts, I didn’t really need the chicken but decided to humor her anyway. When I arrived home and brought the groceries in she started bobbing up and down and chanting “Chicken, chicken, chicken”. Being a “good Mummy” I baked the chicken and they all had chicken minced in with their veggie chop, which resulted in very messy beaks and a lot of munching with the occasional burp thrown for effect by Smokey. Three very full Grey birds are now in bed digesting their meal.

May 27, 2006

I had to go to the grocery store today….again….because I need to make more “Chico Bread” since they are all eating like horses, I don’t know where they are putting it all. Whenever Chico’s bowl is empty, which is midway between breakfast and lunch, she starts making comments like “I don’t see my Chico Bread”, “I need Chico Bread” and my current favorite “Go get me some Chico Bread!”

As usual I told them where I was going before I left and Chico pipes up with “Don’t forget Chicken…. chicken and juice….nuts” as if she was helping me with my list So since I needed it anyway I got chicken, juice and nuts, I didn’t really need the chicken but decided to humor her anyway. When I arrived home and brought the groceries in she started bobbing up and down and chanting “Chicken, chicken, chicken”. Being a “good Mummy” I baked the chicken and they all had chicken minced in with their veggie chop, which resulted in very messy beaks and a lot of munching with the occasional burp thrown for effect by Smokey. Three very full Grey birds are now in bed digesting their meal.

May 17, 2006

May 17th was “Avian Vet Visit Day”. As we live on the Sunshine Coast we have to make the trip into town to go to the Feathers vet, this takes all day as we need to drive, take a ferry, and drive some more to get there. I spent the day before preparing snacks and drinks, a toy box, getting their favorite CD’s and stereo set up, cleaning and preparing their carriers and adapting a seatbelt system in the back seat of the truck cab to keep them safe. Most of the toys were for Franca’s benefit to keep her from chopping her feathers while we traveled.

So up at 5am to deal with the dogs and so the Feathers could have a semi-normal morning before they went into their carriers. All was going well, until we started driving down the street and then Franca decided that she had had enough of new or exciting things and she threw a fit breaking a primary wing blood feather. After two months of doing new, scary but fun things, she clearly couldn’t handle the trip. I made the judgment call to turn around and take her back to her cage. I cleaned her up and made sure the bleeding had stopped, gave her a big bowl of food and some toys and ran back to the truck so that we could get to the ferry in time to claim our reservation.

The rest of the trip went extremely well. Our reservations on the ferry give us priority loading so we are placed in the very front of the deck, this gives us maximum fresh air flow and we are first off at the other end of the voyage, this is necessary so that the Feathers are not exposed to all the fumes. Once we were on board I lifted Chico and Smokey’s carriers into the front seats and they sat with Bill and I watching all the islands, ocean, boats and seagulls, and snacked on Chico Bread, apple slices and drank orange juice and water. I was very impressed with Chico, I had a child’s “sippy bottle” for the juice, I showed her it has a spout that flips out, she looked at it and immediately started drinking from the spout, Smokey watched Chico and then he was able to drink from the spout also.

We arrived at Night Owl Bird Hospital in plenty of time for our appointment and we all went into the exam room. The Feathers Doctor said she was very impressed by the way they looked, and specially by their beaks. All three Feathers do have exceptionally nice beaks, they are all smooth with no ridges and nicely shaped, all quite naturally because they love to chew their Brainiac Blocks. Then the Doctor looked at Chico and Smokey and asked “well, who wants to go first?” ….. silly question really when you are dealing with Chico… Chico pipes up loud and clear in answer “The Dog” well the Doctor DID ask….

While the Feathers were resting after their tests Bill and I went next door to the Bird Store and visited for a bit with the owners until the Doctor called to let us know Chico and Smokey were ready to go home. The return trip was fun, with Smokey now feeling happier that the vet visit was over he decided to try keeping everyone laughing with his noises, and of course Chico was intently interested in everything she could see. They both ate and drank a lot during the return trip, and I got really sticky handling their black cherry juice and apples that I had squeezed an organic orange over to keep them fresh.

Even Franca did well in her own way all by herself at home, I half expected to see chopped feathers from the stress, but there were none, and she had eaten all her food and played with all the toys.

I hope to get the test results today.

May 14, 2006

He's changing.

He wants me to play gingerly but roughly with him hanging upside down from the ring in the kitchen or from the get a grip. He likes being tickled and having me make funny sounds that he makes back. He likes to hang by one leg and let go... and to lay in my hand while I hold him up to the little toys hanging above so he can play with them with his feet and beak while he's laying in my hand. Then he grabs the ring and hangs there and wiggles and wiggles and beaks me very gently (unlike the rest of the time) while my fingers go all over him and under his wings and he wiggles and lets go and grabs again and just has a great old time. Then he wags his little red tail a lot. He wants to do this all the time. He grabs me when I'm near the ring and it's very hard to avoid the ring since it's hanging in the middle of the kitchen between the sink and the stove..

He's sitting on my shoulder right now, and has been all day. He's even climbed down and sat on the drafting table and chewed all the rubber off of a toothbrush and then climbed back up. He's not preening so it's ok, but if he starts preening again, he's got to go.

May 13,2006

Bill was home for a couple days, and Chico has the idea that Daddy being home equals CHICKEN! Or at least it should.

But that evening there was no chicken on the menu, instead I had a lovely big serving plate of fresh organic lightly steamed veggies. Silly me! I walked around the room offering Franca and Smokey their pick of which veggie they would like to eat, Franca chose broccoli, Smokey chose a brussel sprout (wouldn’t have guessed that!), and then it was Chico’s turn. She was sitting on Bill’s knee, I held the plate in front of her and she started looking it over, occasionally flipping a veggie over obviously looking for something, so I asked her “What do you want Chico?” she looks up at me and says “CHICKEN!”

May 10, 2006

Our little Franca is becoming so different. Her March/April hormonal season was totally off the hook this year for the first time, I’ve never seen this in either girl before, of course Smokey makes out with anything anytime so he is different. The whole experience seems to have changed her. During the time her hormones were going wild she tried so many new things that she would never have done before, things that would have been scary, and she found out that she likes them! Every day now she climbs off her cage onto the table and plays with the toys I keep there, then she will take a toy to the window sill and march up and down asking me “what’s that?” when she sees things outside.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to spend time in their room reading the paper so I let Franca out to play while I tried to read. She was thrilled, off the cage she marched onto the table and tackled a box of baby cookies which she shredded into tiny bits and threw all over the place, then she ripped into the box of toys I have ready for our trip to the vet, that box got shredded too (I rescued the toys) after that she decided that no toy should be on the table, the floor is a far better place for them. All toys got hurled to the floor with a satisfying crash followed by a giggle. Now what to do….no toys left on the table…. Her little mind went round and round thinking and came up with a plan ……climb the curtain!! I just stood by watching while she climbed to almost the top of the curtain and back down, this little Grey girl who when we adopted her didn’t have the use of her left leg, scaled the curtain like a pro. The same little Grey girl who will not put her delicate little toes on anything that resembles material/fleece/rope anything soft that could possibly cushion her feet, the thought did pop into my head that if she can simply walk over to a curtain and climb it then why on earth can’t she stand on fleece??? Climbing and standing both involve feet. Maybe tomorrow I will wrap her other perches in microfleece….and the saga of the soft comfy perches will continue.

May 4, 2006

Well at 10 this morning she climbed off her cage onto the table and from there to the window sill where she watched things and kept asking me “what’s that?” she was pretty shaky and over stimulated, but she stuck with it. A couple times she grabbed me, and once she climbed up me, and I stepped her back to her house but within two minutes she was back down on the window sill again. At around 11:00 Franca decided to take a piece of wood to the sill to chip away at while she looked out, from that point on she was very happy chipping wood and standing on the sill watching things not shaking much at all, and when she ran out of wood she would go and fetch another bit and then back to the sill again. At noon Franca went back into her house for a snack so I took the opportunity and wheeled them all across to the sunbeam…..now it is lunch time!!! Birdie salad all round!

Our scared little girl is getting very brave lately

May 1, 2006

Frankie/Franca had another breakthrough this morning! She climbed onto the table and marched to the window sill and spent an hour there marching up and down, looking at everything and making comments. I know she has been on the sill once before but that time was only 15 mins. Today it is howling wind outside everything is blowing, so trees etc waving around, and because it is Neighbourhood Swap Day, there is all sorts of stuff out in front of the houses and all sorts of vehicles and people around picking out what they want. And to top it off Bill is here and he wanted to take Zari out in the truck for a ride to their favorite place, so Franca watched him bring the truck out and got quite over stimulated about the whole thing, then he took Zari to the truck and they drove off so Franca started making a really loud obviously instinctual contact call (both Chico and Smokey answered her). At that point she had been on the sill an hour so I asked her to step and she did with no hesitation I held her for a moment at the window for a final look, and then I put her back on her cage top and closed the curtain to get her calmed down again.

April 28, 2006

Well I came downstairs to hand out appetizers before dinner, and there is Smokey lying in the middle of his bath, he has a rather unique bathing style, he lies there and rolls back and forth creating a wave that splosh’s over him, then he rolls around some more. He finally got around to flapping his wings a bit and dipping his beak and created a huge mess, but when he got out I saw he had pooped in it, so I got him a fresh bath, and he got right back in.

April 21, 2006

Bill was home for two days (Tues & Wed), and Tues evening Franca asked him for scratches!, so he complied (through the cage bars), then I suggested that he open her cage (it was just as she was ready for bed, so all tucked in) and see if she would like full body touches, he was hesitant because he is tuned to her as I am and he knows she is scared of hands and likes to bite him, but he did as I suggested and Franca was thrilled, she allowed him to caress her jaw and breast and stroke her back… she has totally refused any touch from male people since she has been here, in fact her only interaction with him has been to bite to drive him away from me. At first he tried asking her to step up, but I told him no, baby steps, don’t ask for a step up yet. Franca also flew earlier that evening, and after she landed I let her walk on the floor for a bit then asked if she wanted to step up, she stepped onto my hand (exactly as she has been watching Chico do) and didn’t worry at all. I was very slow in returning her to her house, and she stayed on my hand all the time with no panic and no scooting up my arm to get away from the terrifying hand. Once at her house she stepped like a princess onto her door perch and gave me a kiss.

This morning Franca took a tour of the table…she climbed down from her cage on to the table and wandered over to the food tray, stood next to it and peered at my coffee so I removed it, then she stepped up onto the wood edge of the tray and attempted to beak everything on the tray so I removed the entire tray. Then she wandered around a bit more and got up the nerve to step onto the windowsill and march up and down which she found to be very fun. I leaned on the sill next to her while she looked out the window for about fifteen minutes all the while we had a nice exchange, looked at things, commented on things, and got a little scratch then she wandered back onto the table and checked out the toys and snowglobe then climbed back up her cage for a nice preen. All very calm and fun, although she was shaking the entire time but she was pretty excited about the whole adventure. She is really coming out of herself. I have decided to try to lose the “Frankie” and go with Franca, Franky is the name she was given by her former owners who thought she was male, I changed the spelling to Frankie, and often she calls herself Franca…now I just have to convince Chico to call her that. Speaking of Chico…she keeps saying “kibibi” …… kibibi is Swahili for female parrot or princess according to one translation web site, I guess she is both…she also says “baki” which is Swahili for a number of things

April 3, 2006

Well this morning I opened up her cover and there she was sitting on the dreaded curved corner perch. Then she climbed to the door perch and it didn’t look right to her so she avoided it so I ignored her and carried on with Chico and Smokey and then next thing I saw was Frankie on the new door perch. I had to go out to meet Allison for coffee and when I got back Frankie was on the curved perch again and had been there a while as she had been chipping her Block. She had chopped four feathers, but it was not as bad as it could have been. I delivered lunch and she was on the curved perch so I put her skewer next to it and she was eating, then I came upstairs to have my lunch and then stopped in to see them and she had climbed all the way down to her bowl perch for a drink. I will see where she is when I go for groceries in a little while. She seems to be happier with the new perches now, this will be the fastest recovery she has had. I do think she will chop a few more feathers only because she is itchy and molting along with clueing into my stress and having the new perches, but so far she is doing better than she ever has, this time she didn’t get so scared that she fell, like all the other times.

April 2, 2006

I’m having the usual fight with Miss Frankie about her feet. I changed her perches again, I usually rotate her favorite perch since rotating it changes the shape of the entire perch it is that branch-like. But today I moved her favorite to the other side of the cage and put a new perch in its place which is curved so it spans the corner and is a different width and shape for her little feet, I also wrapped a portion of it in the fleece and vet wrap and left the rest bare wood. Then I removed her pedicure perch from the door position (it is totally smooth on top) and replaced it with a natural branch perch that is flat on one side so I have that side on top. I also attempted to install her corner shelf that I have covered with padded polar fleece but that elicited a bout of feather chopping so I removed it for now. She spent the day down on the perch in front of her food bowl and water bottle because that is the only perch I didn’t change, until just before dinner then she reluctantly climbed onto the door perch with the flat top (which is not new, I just took it from elsewhere in her cage). The last I saw her she was clinging to the side bars shaking and glaring at the new perch in her favorite place. I just hope she gets over it and doesn’t chop too many more feathers, she chopped enough earlier in the week when she picked up on my stress.

I feel that I am fighting a loosing battle with her feet situation, so I put in a call to Dr. McDonald to call me back, maybe I am missing something I could be doing, or maybe she just does need orthotics and will perch wrong no matter what perch she has, in which case I have no idea what can be done.

All the panic about new perches, but when I found a stuffed “Tigger” (you know Tigger from Winnie the Pooh) and showed it to her she fluffed up and said “haak” so I made it dance to her and she started singing, then when it got to her I said Bite Tigger’s nose, and she was very happy to oblige and then laughed and did it again. So we played Bite Tiggers Nose for a while to try to calm her about the perches. Now explain why she is shaking and scared of perches that have just been moved within her cage to new position and one new perch, but is not scared of an orange stripy stuffed thing with a blue hat and huge pink nose and big eyes. And yes I did make a huge fuss of the perches stroking them and making approving sounds, which Smokey joined in with, so not a lot of difference with the introduction..

March 24, 2006

Frankie is currently pretty hormonal, right now she loves nothing more than to get on my shoulder for scratches while making little squeaky noises and gently nibbling my neck and cheek. I try not to encourage her because I don’t want egg production, I’m not sure her compromised system could handle it. But the other day she caught me as I was tending to her cage and managed to hop onto my shoulder before I could do anything about it. Once up there she started in with her regurgitating and gentle neck nibbling, working her way up to my cheek. She got as far as my ear and then stood back a little and said “OOooooo”, forgetting all her hormonal activities in a flash, as she advanced on the diamond stud earring I had forgotten I was wearing! I said “Oh no you don’t!” as I quickly scooped her up and deposited her back on her cage top where she marched off muttering to herself. Surprising how quickly a pretty shiny object can change her focus.

March 9,2006

I bought a 14” plant saucer for Chico’s baths after her little episode of trying to drown herself. I put only an inch of water in it and floated a big purple ball in the water, the type of ball they have in the Ballrooms for kids at the Mall. The other day Bill and I were watching her play with the bath, not IN the bath mind you, just WITH the bath, and of course we have to watch her because she just doesn’t look where she is going and being a little motor-mouth her beak is always open.

She climbed onto the rim of the plant saucer, the rim is big and easy for her to walk on, and started talking to the big purple ball “come on, come to Chico” as she marched around the rim, when she finally caught up to the ball she pounded it with her beak and it floated away again so she started running around the rim demanding that the ball “stop it!”. The ball not paying any attention to the running commentary continued to float around just out of reach which she found quite annoying so she told it to “step up” …that didn’t work either. Finally she caught it and held it down with her beak, then got the brilliant idea that she could stand on the ball…..just as I said to Bill “she is going to do a beak plant right into the water” the ball rolled under her foot and she was hurled into the water beak first yelling “Whoops!!” as she went. Is it any wonder that she almost drowned herself the last time when she had more water…

December 27, 2005

I got home from errands this afternoon and looked up while I was in the alley.  I always look up to see if Mattie is outside or inside on her perch that sticks out from her cage.  Well, much to my surprise, there was someone sitting on the perch looking out the window all right, but it wasn't Ms. Mattie Moonbeam, it was Mr. Chiahna Star.  He has his 3rd birthday coming up on January 3rd, and I guess this is one sign of his getting older and braver.  He always chased Mattie, but he has never had the nerve to sit on that perch before today.  Poor Mattie girl, when ever he gets on her cage she leaves.  The reason he got on it today is that he came off his contraption, walked across the cutting board and reached out and grabbed her cage door.  It's such a small kitchen everything is within a few inches of everything else.  I am going to email Ronny the measurments so he can make me a shelf high enough that Chiahna cannot get down and go exploring.

He also did something else very impressive today.   I guess he slipped off his contraption and came flying into the living room while I was standing there.  He was headed toward the far wall, but banked and made a left turn and flew back to land on Mattie's cage.  He actually made a mid flight decision.  What a guy.

December 27, 2005

Hey, did I ever tell you about the “grandma with a beak”?

I came home one day and Chico was talking about “Grandma with a beak!” of course I had no idea what she meant, so I just figured that she had put together words she knew and thought nothing of it. But for days Chico kept mentioning the Grandma with a beak……

Then one day I was in my home office with Frankie and a huge heron came swooping into the back yard and strolled over to the fish pond, Frankie totally freaked out, so I put her in her cage to keep her safe and hurried to the family room where Chico was thinking she would be scared too. As soon as I rushed in she said “see! see! Grandma with a beak!!, See!” she wasn’t scared at all, just excited. I guess that since she doesn’t know the word “heron” she called it the best thing she could think of, and I can see it….Grandma who has hip and knee problems walks very carefully just like a heron, so Chico was telling me what she had seen with the only words she has to best describe the object. Grandma is not impressed.

“Squirrel with a beak” came about in the same way….she doesn’t know the word “woodpecker”, but the common woodpecker here is the Northern Flicker, and it hops around on the ground pecking at bugs, a squirrel also hops around on the ground in a very similar fashion, she knows the word “squirrel” and knows all about “beaks”.

December 21, 2005

Sunday evening I was preparing the Feathers for bed, Chico was on her Get A Grip, Smokey was on Bill attempting to drop as much food down his neck as possible and Frankie was on top of her cage watching me work. I had already wiped down all three cages and changed out the paper, swept the floor and was in the middle of damp mopping when Bill asked me a question so I paused for a moment to answer him. Then I put down my mop to wipe a pomegranate splotch I just noticed, well this didn’t go over well with Frankie who had been making loud yawning sounds (hint, hint), she pipes up with “LETS GO!!”

I have never heard her say that before and we don’t know where she got it from, but her point was very clear, she wanted me to hurry up, stop messing around, and let her get to bed!.

The Santa Saga continued: Friday Frankie was watching the Santa do its hip and arm swinging dance, then when it stopped she marched over and bit it on the hand then marched off giggling and climbed back up her cage. Once she was back on the cage top I pushed the button again, not in the least impressed she rushed all the way back down her cage to the table and hurled herself at the moving Santa biting his hand again, but he didn’t stop moving so she bit him again and hung on, in the meantime Chico is sitting there saying “Grrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrr” and Frankie is hanging onto Santa’s hand, then he stopped moving (she got him close to the end of the song), so she let go and said “There you go!” “What a good Frankie” and climbed inside her cage for a drink. She showed him, all that singing and dancing so close to her cage.

December 18, 2005

Today was a big day for Chiahna. He actually took a bath willingly, flapping and fluffing and grabbing the nozzle while hanging upside down on one of his contraptions. He seemed to enjoy it. When I picked him up to move him he aimed right for the freezer, leaning as far as he could without falling off my hand. So I opened the door and in he went trying so hard to climb onto the shelf with the frozen veggies. He was doing all he could to squish himself into the small space above the packages. Poor little guy, he tried so hard but he just didn't fit. He fluffed himself up again so I spritzed him a couple more times. My hand was cold and I didn't see any point to this so I pulled him out.  He's growing more beautiful and dramatic all the time.  He's very present.  He watches me so intensely and I wonder what he's thinking.

Then this evening as I went to answer the phone, he came flying at me from Mattie's perch at the door and landed on my shoulder. It's the very first time he's ever flown and actually landed where he intended to land without crashing. I guess my boy is now fully fledged, even though he's going to be 3 on January 3rd. I can't believe it's almost 3 years since I lost my beloved Reemie.

Georgie goes home tomorrow. She is a very lazy girl. I'm going to have to chastise Jeff about not teaching her to play with toys. She just sits like a lump all day. I gave her fresh eucalyptus, and some smallish toys and she just sits, I have never seen an amazon so still, except for Reemie, but even Reemie played with things from time to time. I remember her rolling on the floor with this little toy that had a bell in it. She would grab it and try to hold on with her good foot and she would tip over and become very vocal about playing. They were the most wonderful happy sounds I have ever heard. I could only watch this secretly through the crack in the bathroom door, because if she caught me watching she would stop immediately. She had such fun there was no way I could resist the chance to see her happy.  I loved nothing more than to see her happy.

December 9, 2005

Frankie is “getting in the sprit” …….sort of…..she has made it her mission to cause grievous bodily harm to the Hip Swingin’ Santa automation that is in the Feathers Room. Of all the things that I would have thought she would be scared of that Santa is certainly one of them, you push a button and it starts swing its hips and arms along to the song “Here Comes Santa Claus” , it is about two feet tall all dressed in red etc. As soon as I push the button and the movement starts Chico sings and dances along, Smokey watches it as though he is not quite sure what it is, but Frankie marches across her cage top down the side and onto the table and runs at Santa beak open feathers fluffed and lunges at him, then backs up giggling, composes herself glares at Santa, realizes that her initial attack didn’t convince him to stop and goes for him again. All this from the same Grey girl who clung to her cage bars in abject terror when I vet wrapped her perch to protect her feet! It just goes to show that there’s no telling what is going to scare her!

I have tried to take photo’s but she refuses to attack if I have the camera there, maybe she figures I’ll send the photo’s to the real Santa!

Yesterday Smokey spent most of the day cruising around on the playtop area of his cage, he loves dancing on the tray up there because his feet make interesting sounds. I was working and kept passing their room and he would call out to me as I went by. I was down the hall and suddenly heard a great flapping of wings, so I peeked in to see what was going on and he very quickly started dancing to the music lifting his feet and saying “Wooo Hooo!” as if he had been caught in the act doing something he shouldn’t. Considering that he was on the branch that he usually leaps from when he wants to try courting Frankie, I guess he may well have been thinking that if he flapped hard enough he could get over to her.

December 3, 2005

Well I bought some of the Red Mill apple and cinnamon multi grain cereal and they are both eating it. Could be one of two reasons, either they are both starving since they wouldn't eat the chopped chicken with corn and sweet potatoes, the cream of wheat made with chicken broth, the apples or persimmons. Or they like it.

Or not. I just went in there and because I stopped feeding Mattie by spoon, she won't eat it now.
I see trouble ahead for her. She lost weight and every night for the last three nights, including tonight, when I put her on her sleeping cage she gets this stupid look on her face and starts huffing and puffing and getting lower and lower. This is a first for her. She's never done this sort of thing just looking into the mirrors that are there. She has also started dragging things to the infamous hole. Yesterday it was a nut and today it's just poking around and a paper roll. It seems to me that she just got over a breeding season not 2 months ago. And now we're stuck with each other in the house because she doesn't want to go outside. She's been in here all day, just sitting and staring at me.

November 13, 2005

Yesterday the Grey Girls wanted a bath, so hoping for the best I delivered baths to all three. Frankie dove straight in as usual and Chico was quick to follow….Smokey however climbed over to his bath looked at it, made gurgling sounds and bobbed up and down then retired to his perch to watch the bathing beauties. That’s a boy bird for you!
ovember 19, 2005

After having thought up the new toy product I decided to make the model. That meant I had to hammer in 10 nails to hold the rope in place while I worked with it. which would be fine if I was in the workshop, but I was in the Feathers room as Frankie and Smokey were out playing. So rather than put them in their cages I decided to make it fun for them. I showed them the wood, nails and hammer and told them it would make a big noise, then I put one nail on the wood and hit it once and laughed, hit it again and laughed, hit it again and Chico, Frankie and Smokey laughed, the more I hit the nails into the wood the more and louder they laughed, so by the tenth nail we had gales of loud laughter going along with animated head bobbing. The neighbors must think we are nuts!

November 10, 2005

I made rye berries with minced green, sweet kabocha squash balls and scrambled eggs. Tangerine and pomegranate on the side. Chiahna ate his egg. Both ate their poms. No one ate anything else. Both were hungry all day. Chiahna's crop was caved in he ws so empty. Yesterday I served the rye berries with peas and chopped red bell peppers and a bit of red hot jelly mixed in. No one ate all day. These two monsters would rather go hungry than eat.  I think that Chiahna isn't eating because Mattie isn't eating. He watches her. Chiahna was skinny to start with and now all he wants to eat is hot cereal. Mattie too, but she won't eat just any hot cereal, it has to be the right one at the right time.  But I know one thing they both really love... buckwheat pancakes made from scratch... and they don't know it but I grate in a little winter squash.

November 7, 2005

It seems the power of pomegranate is greater than “the desire to not stand on comfy perches just because we know the Mom person wants us to”. This morning I wrapped half of Frankie’s favorite perch in vet wrap, and while she did spend all morning out of her cage avoiding the perch, once I hung her lunch skewer with a huge piece of Pomegranate on it right by the perch and left the room, she scooted over there and demolished the Pom. When I went into the bird room a few moments ago she had one foot on the vet wrap and one on the bare perch…..of course there is also red splatter on the vet wrap…..

You should see my kitchen. They eat them all day long. Then they throw them down onto the floor. There are always seeds left in them. It's a teensy kitchen. Use your imagination.

November 6, 2005

Today Frankie is actually standing on the vet wrap, yeah! Not that she has much choice if she wants to be on her favorite perch, I now have it three quarters covered and tomorrow I'll cover the last
quarter. I am going to fix the final pressure point on her feet one way or the other. In reality her feet are 100% better then when we adopted her, but because of the weakness in her legs for so many years
she stands "wrong" on her feet which makes it very hard to get rid of the final pressure points. Birdie orthotics are what she really needs, little sandals with birdie orthotics to correct her arches.

I made some bird cookies a while ago and froze them. Last night I gave Smokey one for dinner since he didn't want the dinner I made for him, he loved it. Nothing in them but pumpkin, rice, and kashi. And
the good part is if the Feathers decide they don't like them they make good dog cookies too!! Dogs are handy for leftovers like that. Tonight is chicken time, Chico will be so happy, her Daddy arrives and
she gets chicken for dinner. Well have to go dish out the pomegranate for lunch!

October 25, 2005

Chico had her “Jukebox” playing “Love me Tender” again tonight, and after a couple of times just dancing to it she decided that the tune needed words, I don’t think it is quite what Elvis had in mind, but Chico’s version so far is “Chico is a pret-ty bird, woo, woo, woo” accompanied by dancing. Then Frankie got into the groove and her version is “Fran-kie, Fran-kie, Fran-kie, Frankie-bird”. Smokey just wanted to dance.

October 24, 2005

A couple days ago I put a “jukebox” in Chico’s cage, it is a plastic thing with a button and when she pus