Birdie Guests

This morning we welcomed Grace’s “cousins” Cato and Bailey to our home for a few days. They are offspring from our Timneh African Greys (a different sub-species from Grace, she’s a Congo) – Cato was the first Grey hatched in the house.

The first clutch came with me to work for hand-feeding. At that stage in their lives they were quiet and unobtrusive – not many people even knew they were there with me in my office. I can still picture Cato looking up at me with her big dark eyes from under my desk. Since they were with me 24/7 I developed quite an attachment to them, especially Cato who was the oldest and most precocious. I was devastated when Ruth picked her. Of course it has turned out well, as I didn’t really lose a bird, but instead made a really good friend.

Our guests settled in right away, it wasn’t long before they were both digging into their dishes to finish their breakfast.

The photos below aren’t of Cato and Bailey – they are some of their brothers and sisters from different clutches. The three Amigos were cuties.

For supper we all (birds included) shared bowls of homemade soup: lentils, summer squash, kale, red pepper, onion, pesto, sirracha. Yum! I should have gotten a photo of Bailey stuffing himself with squash.  Grace wanted me to tip the spoon to feed her like a baby – which doesn’t work so well with a soup spoon! She looked a bit like the babies above.

I was listening to music this afternoon when the Doobie Brothers “Old Black Water” started playing. I was immediately wisked back in time to the summer between grade 7 and 8, I guess I would have been 12 or 13. My friend Robin (from Rainbow Ridge riding place) had a little party in her basement. I can almost feel the nubby fabric on the old sofa; a table was set up with soft drinks and chips; the lights were dim (or is it the memory that is dim!); and of course music was playing. I even think I had a boyfriend there, but I can’t remember his name. Gotta love those time travel songs!

 

Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got. ~ Art Buchwald