It's Blooming....

One of the Christmas cactuses ("cacti", according to Sep) is blooming. The girl took these staged photos--for a Christmas card, she says! We're not thinking about Christmas--just tryin' to figure out how to get at those delicious flowers...
Jary

Squirrels

The squirrels are starting to inch closer and closer to the back door. I know they are hungry and cold, but Geoffrey is not sympathetic. He says they are "rats with bushy tails", and will not talk to them. I sometimes sit on the kitchen window and chirp at them. They aren't very talkative, and tend to mumble. A conversation goes like this:
Jay: Hi, how are you?
Squirrel: OK.
Jay: What are you doing?
Squirrel: Eating.
Jay: I had a nice breakfast. We had spinach. What are you going to have?
Squirrel: Dunnoh.
(He does know! He has a alpine strawberry in his paws--which he's trying to hide!)
Jay: The female got out the suet feeder yesterday. I thought you'd like to know.
Squirrel: Yeah.

I gave up at that point. He is interested in the suet feeder though. We'll be seeing a lot more of him.
Jay

Energy Conservation Run Amok

The older female has been viewing the electricity bill with increasing angst and dismay over the last few months. She has responded by initiating a campaign to "turn down the heat", of which everyone else in the house disapproves, although we have reservations about saying so. She enhances this feeling by appealing to our "global warming" guilt, and ridiculing our hardiness--"Put on a SWEATER!". That's OK for the humans--but WE can't but on a sweater, only puff up, and sit, miserable, on the perch. She likes the cold--she has the fat layer of a pre-migratory goose, is post-menopausal, and has a nice array of fashionable sweaters. The rest of us aren't in the same situation, and the older male even sneaks the thermostat up a few degrees when she's not looking. Our ancestors came from the semi-desert regions--keeping the house at 65 degrees is uncomfortable! This regimen will only increase our seed consumption, and, as a result, our poop rate. So she'll just have to clean the cage more often! Hummphh!
Geoffrey

In Thanksgiving for Lettuce

Lettuce eat it!
Lettuce munch it!
Lettuce tear it!
Lettuce crunch it!

Lettuce at it!
Lettuce say,
We'd gladly have it
Every day!

When we're done
Lettuce have more--
The most expensive
In the store!

Spinach, mesclun,
Romaine's great,
But Iceberg's the one
We celebrate!

Lettuce be grateful
For this treat.
Lettuce be thankful
As we eat.

Amen!
Jary

Birdwatching 5

Re: Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
We always feel uncomfortable this time of year. Why? Because Thanksgiving seems to be primarily about executing, stuffing, roasting, and eating a large, defenceless (we will grant--stupid) BIRD! We feel great sympathy for the domestic turkey. Raised solely to provide an enormous meal for an extended human family, the same humans then turn and accuse them of stupidity and ugliness. Who, we ask, bred these qualities into them? Wild turkeys are clever and impressive birds! Of course, that doesn't stop humans from eating them, too--but at least the humans have to undergo discomfort and effort to get one! The domestic ones are delivered, frozen and dressed, to the supermarket! We think the focus of Thanksgiving should be on gratitude. The world's turkeys would be grateful if they were not the focus of the feast....and I think it would be a blow against global warming if we just turned the ovens off!
Geoffrey

Editorial: Universal Health Care Coverage

Now that the cage is clean, and there is new newspaper on the floor, I'm able to follow the debate amongst the presidential candidates regarding medical care and universal health care insurance. We don't want any coverage at all--we hate going to the vet! As far as we're concerned, NO health care whatsoever should be what an intelligent parakeet should strive for. In our view, health care consists of transport to the vet's office in a comfortless "travel cage", sitting in the waiting room surrounded by irritable predators, being plucked from the cage and weighed in a closed tupperware container, and then poked and prodded by a vet wearing a pair of telescopic goggles that look like something the aliens would wear in a "made-for-TV" Sci-Fi movie. Not for us! Our only consolation is that the older female has to pay over three times our original cost for the visit! Serves her right.
Geoffrey

The Joys of Lettuce

We all love our morning lettuce. Right now, while we wait for the mesclun outside to grow, we are eating the most expensive sweet baby lettuce available at the grocery store. Nothing but the best! I'm sure it is very good for feathers and keratin, and it is so nice and crunchy.
Jay-Jay

Cleaned at Last

We'd like to thank the older female and the boy for cleaning the cage last night. We are revelling in the luxury, and doing our best to make the job necessary again in short order. I have made unkind comments about Jary's poetry in the past, but I must say that his little couplet had a remarkable effect. I'd never recognized the practical uses of poetry before!
Geoffrey

A Brief, but Heartfelt, Poem

It's been an age
Since you cleaned the cage.

Jary

A Halloween Mishap

Halloween has just passed, and the humans are taking down the decorations and jettisoning the moldy pumpkin. I wanted to give some advice to bird owners and to other birds about Halloween candy: Nerds are Not for Birds!

Last year, I was browsing about on the carpet near the cage after the festivities, and encountered some black and purple "seeds" with a pleasantly sweet taste. I gobbled them right up--not wanting Jary to get any. I was punished for my greed. They were actually a candy called "Nerds". They impacted my crop, and I passed the night in severe gastrointestinal distress. I was so dehydrated by morning, I fell while attempting to fly. The female human was sympathetic, turned up the heat, offered water, and vacuumed up the remaining candy pieces. Mercifully, she did not take me to the vet! Jary sat beside me on the perch--and I will always be grateful for his silent encouragement. I had dry heaves all morning, but was able to take a little water and lettuce later in the day. It was a dreadful experience--such things should NOT be allowed in the house, much less on the carpet near an unsuspecting bird's cage!
Geoffrey