Friday, August 1, 2008

Apparently I was camera crazy last night. Also, perhaps I should have purchased a video camera with all of the films I've been making lately.

We've been listening to the ipod lately, and Thomas made a comment last night which made me think of one of my favorite "best of craiglist" comments: My ipod shuffle thinks I'm gay. Wednesday night, it kept playing metal songs. We have a lot of songs that the ipod could choose from, but it was heavily playing the less than 1% of them that are metal.


Then, last night, he was happy that it seemed to be in sync with his mood. After playing one Queen song, he switched it from a shuffle of all songs, to a shuffle of Queen songs. Beeps, perhaps not surprisingly, is a huge Queen fan. I tried to get a video of him dancing because he is the funniest dancer I have ever seen (and so different from any other parrot), but he stopped as soon as the camera came out. So you may hear a lot of Queen in the many videos to follow!


One of the finds at Wednesday's farmers' market were these parrot-sized squash. Apparently they are called patty pan squash.
This is the first time we've served them, and Max was a big fan. The rest of the parrots were not so sure, but perhaps once they've been exposed to them more often they'll change their minds!

My intention was to show some of the cooking we've been doing this summer, but I often forget. We've been eating a lot of salads. Our favorite farmer sells these fantastic greens mixes, of which we buy several pounds every week. Then we add different vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, and cheese. Yesterday's looked particularly appetizing, I thought. To the greens, we added tomatoes, currants, cheddar goat cheese, and walnuts.Upon returning home, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the order I'd placed with Grey Feather Toys had arrived. None of the parrots got any of the new toys, yet. We're leaving on vacation in a few weeks and I want them to have new things when we're gone to keep them occupied. But, the toys arrived wrapped in purple tissue paper. I stuffed this into Beeps's cage, and it was a huge hit!This first video is from when he first was given some of the paper (you can hear one of the greys demanding "up!" at around 13, 15, and 24 seconds):

The paper had been on his cage for several hours at this point. He had been dancing most of the evening, and I was trying to capture this on video. Of course, he did not cooperate and instead started showing off. I particularly love how he marches around, stomping over anything in his path.

I wish I would have continued taping for another few seconds because right after I hit "stop," he lost his balance and fell over on his back, with the bowl covering him. He took this in stride.

All of the baby rainbowfish have been swimming with the school of larger fish, which makes me happy. When I get home from work, the fish are very active, begging for food. In the background of this video, you can hear one of the greys (probably Stella) imitating my sneeze at around 9 seconds. Stella has picked up pretty much everything Max says, and it's gotten to the point where I can't tell who's talking if I'm in a different room.

I'm not sure if I've talked about this before, but Max has been hanging out on the stairs lately. This isn't really allowed since I don't want her pooping on the carpet -- that's why we have hard floors on our lower level! Also, that encourages Rocky to hang out on the stairs, and he has a habit of chewing on the carpet. Since we replaced it just three years ago, I'd like for it to remain relatively nice!


She usually hangs out, about 6 or 7 steps up, occasionally ordering us around ("Up!" "Come here!") or commenting on what's going on (laughing or sneezing). In this video, I was taping her walking up the stairs. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard Rocky coming over to join in the fun. Isn't it amazing how quickly he can climb the stairs? He doesn't even use his beak to go up. When I pan to Max, it's because she's dancing. I guess everyone likes Queen!

I'm ending today's post with a picture from this morning. Thomas showered with Rocky, and then after he left for work, Rocky stayed in the bathroom, drying off. I went in to check on him regularly, and noticed that he was drying in a strange manner. The left side of his head apparently did not get as wet as the rest of him! I thought he looked pretty goofy, and it shows how different his green feathers look when they're wet!

Hope everyone has a good weekend. I am running a race, and Thomas has also entered. He's going to try to beat me, and I don't want that to happen, so the pressure is on!

5 comments:

Scritches.com said...

These are great (as usual)! What fun it must be at your house.

Good luck in the race -- and hope you beat the pants off Thomas.

Anonymous said...

*laughs* Oh man, this was a great post. Queen for the win.
LOVED the picture of Rocky, and the video of headbanging Max. (Who DOESN'T love Queen?)

The video of Beeps and the paper just made me think of BEEPZILLA, the giant caique that ravages Tokyo. =3

Good luck on the race! Kick his butt.

Mary said...

BP,

It can be fun at our house, but can get overwhelming at time! Also, we cannot have many visitors since it's all about the parrots and most people don't understand that. But that works out well for us since we don't really want that many visitors anyway!

Sammi,

Your comments have been cracking me up lately! The paper may have turned him into a littel monster -- see my bite picture from today. May have put him in a nesting mood, so it's been removed!

Anonymous said...

Are you using real plants in your aquarium? I had a tank for 15 years and just recently gave it up. I always used plastic plants, and they just don't compare to the real ones. Do you have a special light for the plants?

Mary said...

We have real plants, which are Thomas's passion. We do have special lights, he fertilizes regularly, and we have a CO2 reactor going.

He's told me he'd be happy with a fishless tank as long as he could have his plants. I don't agree so we also have the fish!