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

Habitual Nourishment - Green Smoothies

A good start to the day that leaves me feeling energized!

Yesterday:

Today:

The blender had trouble with today’s smoothie, too many big chunks. I’ll have to do some more chopping tomorrow!

Note that these are not flavour sensations… they don’t taste horrible, but they aren’t milkshakes either, but knowing that they are so nutritious I never have difficulty drinking them.

Also, frozen blueberries are a good addition, but unfortunately turn the smoothie into a gross brownish colour. So I save my blueberries for something else! In fact, today I’m going to try making “icecream” with blueberries, chia seeds, and almond milk. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it worked out.

 

Maybe we need to re-engage our smart, energetic youth around the world to be farmers and find fresh, green technologies that will feed the world more fresh greens.  ~ Ellen Gustafson

Our Trees all Topped

We are back home, or I should say back at the house home. The prediction of rain all day yesterday didn’t pan out so we had an easy breakdown and were on the road fairly early. We were greeted by a beautiful rose on one of our bushes! What a surprise this time of year.

We are really glad we had taken a chance on the weather forecast those last 4 wonderful days! It didn’t rain during the day at all, and only rained a bit overnight 2 of the nights. The forecast had called for rain every day.

So here it is Saturday – we are done camping for the year - I feel discombobulated and at loose ends. I’d love to go for a walk, but not on the speeding traffic roads that are around the house.  I guess a walk around the property would have to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to help my mood any.

Before we left on our latest trip, the Ontario Power Corp were by to tell us they’d be cutting down some trees. Carm talked with they guy about our slow growing spruces that are along the power lines, but hardly under them. It would be decades, if ever, before they would interfere. Only a few might need trimming.

Well… we came home one day to find most of the trees on that stretch “topped”. They had come and cut the tops off of many of our beautiful trees!!!!! Even the trees in the next row were impacted. I couldn’t speak, and can still barely think about it. OPC was so heavy handed in what they “pruned” or cut down – I can’t think of a nice word to say…

A few of the trees barely brush the fence at the bottom; the fence is several feet from being underneath the lines. The trees would have to be 100’ tall before they’d be close to the lines. Oh my gosh – It makes me so mad – I’m getting myself all worked up about it again.

 

Usually when I sit down to write my blog I find so much to write about, even if there was nothing in my mind to start. Not so today, but as I was sitting here the file directory was open in the window next to my blog writer – I decided to randomly open one photo to paste here.

This is a photo of Petra, one of our foals. She was our first filly, and I had every intention of keeping her for our breeding program. She had everything: a good temperament, she was so easy going; athleticism; good conformation; and good bloodlines. Oh rats – I didn’t pick a good topic, it just leads my thoughts into why I didn’t keep her and all of those depressing memories… Not Helpful Today! (but it is cool photo so I’ll leave it at that!)

I watched a bit of “The Hobbit” last night as it was on the movie channel. It seemed more childish this watch, but there are still many great moments.

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” Gandalf ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit