Flood/Treats

My person and I were very fortunate during hurricane Irene. There was flood water almost all around us, but since we live on a hill, the flood didn’t come anywhere near my cage or my person’s house. I am a little sad, though, because the garden did get flooded and the sunflowers were soaked in mud. My person says it isn’t possible to clean them well enough for me to eat. A whole summer of growing sunflowers wasted! Except for the few my person harvested before the flood, I guess I’ll be eating store-bought treats this winter. On the other hand, I have discovered a new treat from the garden. The other day, my person harvested a lot of hazelnuts, which weren’t hurt by the flood. I sat on her shoulder and watched with interest as she took the nuts out of their shells. The pile of shelled nuts in the bowl grew bigger and bigger. Finally I decided it was time check them out, so I crawled down my person’s arm and waddled over to the bowl and picked up a little white round nut. Right away I realized that it tasted nothing at all like a walnut, so I dropped it and climbed back up to my person’s shoulder. But my person kept paying attention to those nuts, so I thought there must be something in them and that I should give them another try. So I climbed back down to the bowl and picked up another nut and rolled it around and around in my beak. Then I took a bite out of it. It really wasn’t so bad. So I dropped it, picked up another, bit it and dropped it. It tasty rather yummy. So I went on picking up nuts, biting, dropping, until my person got mad at me for taking bites out of all the nuts and put me back in my cage. Well. Just because a parrot doesn’t eat the same way a person a does! We never eat the whole of anything, but just take a bite, drop it, and move on to the next thing. It’s the parrot way. Anyhow, those hazelnuts tasted good and I can’t wait until my person harvests more.

Seedy

Here’s something I don’t get about people: They talk about the word “seedy” as if it meant something bad. To my way of thinking, there’s nothing better than finding a nice seedy berry in your food dish in the morning. In fact, one thing that makes summer so great is that there are lovely seedy berries in my food dish every day. I’m glad that at least MY person doesn’t have any prejudices against seediness.

Water Bottle

So the other day I was hanging out in my cage without anything particular to do, and feeling a bit peeved because my person was wandering around the house doing all sorts of fun-sounding things but not paying any attention to ME at all. So I was thinking about what I could do about that when my eye fell on my water bottle. OK, so I know I’m not the first parrot to think of this, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea. So I just kind of moseyed over to that side of the cage and gave that bottle a good heft with my beak and, just as I thought, it went clattering to the floor. And on top of that, it broke! What fun! Naturally that brought my person running into the room. She picked up the pieces of the broken bottle, but there the fun ended. She just threw the pieces in the trash and went back about her business. Bo-o-o-r-r-r-ing! But then a little while later she showed up with a new water bottle and started attaching it to my cage. This was a very different water bottle in every way-shape, color, everything was different. As a professional parrot, I can’t let any strange thing get near me without checking it out first for predatory potential. So I spent some time attacking the new water bottle. But then I realized that it was really a rather nice thing after all and that in fact I like it very much. I like it so much that I spend a good part of the day sitting lovingly next to it. Of course, I don’t want to let anybody or anything near it, so naturally I have to attack my person every morning when she tries to fill it with fresh water. “If you keep biting me,” she says, “you won’t get fresh water.” She totally doesn’t get it. It’s not about fresh water, it’s about protecting my territory rights. Sheesh! People can be so dumb sometimes.

House Painting

Last winter it was remodeling, and now it’s house painting. At least the house painters leave all their scary, predatory-looking equipment outside. But they sure do make noise. Sometimes I’m sitting quietly in my cage just minding my own business (preening, chewing up popsicle sticks, holding my toothbrush, you know, parrot stuff) when I start hearing these strange noises—banging, scraping, swishing, clanging. And then sometimes a face will suddenly appear in the window. You better believe I start squawking when that happens. My person says they’re just painters scraping the old paint off the window frames or applying the new paint, but I don’t know, it sure seems like predatory behavior to me. I don’t know why my person is always letting all these predators hang around the house. It sure keeps me busy trying to protect us.

Question Technology

I understand that our local Borders, along with all the rest of them, is going out of business because everyone is buying ebooks now to read on their Kindles. OK, that is something I totally don’t get. Although I have never personally seen a Kindle, I’ve been around plenty of computers and other electronic devices and I can tell you that despite their often having a few tasty plastic pieces here and there, they don’t make for nearly as good chewing as a nice old-fashioned book does. There’s nothing like chewing your way through a good book and filling up your person’s desk with piles of fluffy white page scraps. Until someone invents a Kindle that can do that, I’m sticking with books.

How to stay cool on a hot summer day

Raid the walnut stash in the refrigerator.

Lazy Days of Summer

You might imagine that the reason I haven’t posted on this blog for so long is that I have been busy with my new summer job. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Despite my many talents, I haven’t been able to find anyone to hire me. However, there’s still plenty to do around the cage. Mostly I’ve been busy nesting. Also I went away for the weekend to Trouble’s house. That was OK, but I’m happy to be home again. I am also happy to be able to report that the garden is growing well, especially the sunflowers. So I look forward to eating sunflower seeds all winter. This morning my person got all excited when she saw a hummingbird sipping nectar from the scarlet runner beans that she planted. That was a little weird. I mean, she doesn’t get all excited when she sees me eating walnuts out of my dish. But there’s just no explaining people.