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.