Bird, M.D.

In this case, the M.D. stands for Major Deity, because I'm sure that's what the parrot looks like to the little chicks below her.

There's this feathered being far above them, much larger than they are!

Or perhaps she could be BIRDzilla!

Whatever she looks like to the little chicks, she is intensely curious about those peeping little fluff balls!

Going to the Dogs

We have 3 kinds of dogs at our house.

1) We have two dog dogs, Toby and Neffie. Toby's an American Farm Collie and Neffie is a Maremma, a type of Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD).

Neffie on the left, Toby to the right. They're walking
towards me from the back pasture in the early morning sunlight.

2) We have a cat dog named Spot. He's a big white cat that follows us around everywhere we go outside, and comes when you whistle for him.

This is Spot Fencewalker, our cat dog.
3) Then there's my Bird Dog. She's an African Grey Parrot, and loves to imitate the dogs outside when they start barking. Remember, she's imitating it just as she hears it, so it sounds a little strange.

The picture is rather dark as I didn't have any extra lighting,
but it's the sound effects that are important anyway.

We have a strange household, and a farm full of strange critters. We're definitely going to the dogs here.

Welcome to the Funny Farm!

It wasn't ME, Mom!

This morning I was sitting at my desktop computer in my office down the hall from the living room. I was concentrating on finishing up the day’s humor mailing so I could get it sent out, and kept hearing Young Son giggling. It sounded just like it does when I’m sitting on the living room couch, and he’s down in his room in the basement right underneath me, laughing at something he’s watching on tv.

It passed through my mind to wonder what he was doing up so early since he doesn't have to go to work today, and what in the world he was watching on tv that time of morning, but I was busy so didn’t think any more about it until he came upstairs a while later.

Then I asked him what had him laughing so bright and early, and he informed me it wasn’t him because he just got up.

Ohhhhhh…. picture the little light bulb going off over my head. If it wasn’t the Geek giggling, then it was our parrot imitating him. Sure enough, I heard the same sound a little while later when I knew the Geek wasn’t in the basement..

Mind you, the parrot stops the minute you walk in the room and gives you that innocent, “It wasn’t me!” kind of look. And she’ll probably never do it so Geek will get to hear it. But she has a perfect rendition of the sound, just like she imitates the sound of a dog barking in a distance. After all, she mimics the sounds just like she hears them.

No telling who I'll hear next.

A Peeling Parrot

Right now my parrot is barking. No, I’m not kidding. She hears Toby barking outside and starts mimicking him. She does a pretty good job of it, too.

A little while ago she was eating a grape. She’s funny about them. She’ll only eat one if she sees a person eating grapes and they give her one. I tried pretending to eat a grape and give her one and she wouldn’t take it. But just let Young Son walk by munching on a grape and she’s eager to pluck one out of his hand.

She has a system to eating them. She doesn’t like the juice to drip in her cage, so she either hangs out over the edge, or uses one of the papers on top as a plate. She rolls the grape around in her mouth until she gets the peel off, then eats the inside of the grape.

She does much the same with apples, carefully munching the fruit while leaving the peel behind.

What a crazy bird! I never know what she’ll do next.