Career Plans

Do you know what you want to be when you grow up? I’m thinking shepherd might be a fun job. The other day, my person and I were watching a movie and every once in a while a whole bunch of sheep would show up on the screen, all baaing and bleating. Naturally, I squawked like crazy when I saw them because that’s what I always do when I see strange animals, but also because I really enjoyed their baaing and bleating sounds. I can appreciate any animal that makes interesting sounds. So I was thinking, if I were a shepherd I could baa and bleat with the sheep all day and then I would squawk and they would go where I told them to go. I think it would be a great job. What about you? Would you like to be a shepherd? What kind of job would you like to have?
(7/31/10)

Gardening

I’ve been helping my person with the gardening recently. It’s a pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon. I sit in my carrier in the grass while my person weeds the vegetables and checks to see if any beans are ready to be picked yet. There are so many things to watch in a garden. First of all, there are lots of little creatures like lady bugs and spiders crawling around on the leaves. I can see bees collecting pollen from the squash blossoms and dumb robins hopping around on the grass. I can hear lots of birds singing in the woods. I can keep an eye on the sunflowers (and I’m happy to report they are still growing strong and several are ready to bloom) and watch the pea pods grow. I can’t wait till the peas are ripe. I just love eating peas right from the pod. I love eating green beans, too, because they have delicious seeds inside them. The garden is full of so many wonderful things (as long as the deer and woodchucks stay away).

Hold On!

I just love holding things. That’s because I’m a parrot and we parrots have special feet that are made for climbing and holding. I use my feet to hold my food while I eat, but I also like to hold things for fun and relaxation. My absolute favorite toy in the whole wide world is my toothbrush, which hangs from the top of my cage. I stand on my perch on one foot and hold my toothbrush with the other foot while I squawk and chirp and chatter for hours. It’s so much fun! I also like to hold plastic milk bottle caps. Sometimes I chew them, but other times I just like to sit on my perch holding a plastic cap in my foot. Holding things is really fun, don’t you think?

Sunflowers

I’ve been watching the sunflowers in our garden with great interest. After the seeds form, my person picks the flower heads and saves them for me to eat in the winter. I get to eat the seeds right out of the flower. If you’ve never tried that, you should. It’s definitely the best way to eat seeds. We had a bit of a scare in the spring when some bad deer came and ate the tops off all the young sunflower plants. You can imagine how upset we were when we discovered almost the whole row of plants with their tops bitten off. What a mean thing to do. I would never go eat the deer’s favorite plants that they had been saving to eat in the winter. Those deer are very rude creatures. I told my person to put a sign in the garden that says “No Deer Allowed,” but she’s not so sure that the deer will be able to read it. Dummies. Fortunately, at the time of the sunflower tragedy it was still early in the season and my person was able to plant more sunflowers and now they are growing very well. I look forward to lots of seed eating this winter.

A Place to Perch

Sometimes all you need is a good place to perch. Some days it’s all rainy and cold and I can’t go outside in my carrier or sit by the open window and talk to the outside birds. Or I might get to thinking about my true love Quentie, who I had to leave behind in the city when my person and I came here to live. Or maybe my person forgets to give me my afternoon treat. Yep, some days can look pretty dreary, even to a bright green parrot like me. But then I notice the laundry rack right there in the middle of the living room just waiting to be perched on, so I fly to it and sit on the very top bar and stretch and preen and let out a few loud squawks, and the day starts looking pretty good. The right place to perch can really make a difference, don’t you think?

What happened to summer?

One day it’s all warm and sunny and I’m hanging out on the windowsill talking to the outside birds and going outside for walks in my carrier, and the next day it’s chilly and rainy and the window is shut tight and my carrier is nowhere to be seen. I don’t like being shut up inside on a gray, wet day like this. I sure hope the sun comes back tomorrow. Well, anyhow, at least I still have strawberries in my dish, so that’s something. And speaking of outside birds, those phoebes that built their nest right outside our kitchen window are gone. They just disappeared. Mrs. Phoebe sat on that nest for like a month and then one day we didn’t see her anymore. We still hear the phoebe pair calling “Phoebe! Phoebe!” out in our woods, but they’ve never come back to the nest. We started wondering what was inside it. Did the eggs just not hatch? Did the babies die? Finally, the other day my person took the nest down and we looked inside, and guess what we saw? Nothing. That’s right. Absolutely nothing. Poor Mrs. Phoebe hadn’t laid even one egg. Maybe she’ll try again next year.

The Joys of Summer

Imagine my delight when I peeked into my food dish this morning and found strawberries! Mmmmm, seedy! Now I know summer is really here.
Now that I have recovered from my fright of last week, I have ventured back onto the windowsill a few times to check out the outside birds, though it is a bit nerve wracking since there are always cars and trucks speeding by. But despite that I’ve had some good communication with the outside birds. They chirp and twitter and sing, and I chime in with squawks and beeps, and sometimes I throw in a “Pretty bird!” or two for good measure. We’ve had some interesting conversations.