On Saturday morning, I had been upstairs while Thomas and the parrots were finishing breakfast. When I came back down, I did my normal parrot census (not that I don't trust Thomas to keep an eye on everyone...) and Stella was missing. I looked in all of the usual place -- the carpet by the shoes, the stove, the dishrack, her stand, Max's stand -- nowhere! Then I noticed Thomas was snickering a bit, as he'd known all along she was reading the paper!
My dad's side of the family is changing up the Christmas gift exchange this year. Everyone was supposed to buy a $5 or less item at a hardware store. We were visiting my parents, so Thomas, my dad, brother, sister, and I crammed into to car and headed to the hardware store. We found our gifts and were surprised when we found the perfect toy for Rocky, and it was only $1.99: a fleece throw blanket. This guy is so strange. I'm pretty sure this blanket will make him happier than any of his toys. He'd probably prefer it if I'd remove all of his toys, except for one bell, from his cage, and replace them with blankets.I took a couple of videos, but he played with this for a really, really long time:
I think I've mentioned before that Rocky has food issues. We think he was not fed on a consistent basis in his previous home. As such, despite the fact that he's beed fed regularly for the 2 1/2 years he's been with us, he gets anxious and unbearable when he thinks he should be fed and he's not.
Yesterday, Thomas and Rocky were in a back bedroom and I was reading in the living room with the rest of the parrots. I stopped by and asked Thomas what he was thinking about for dinner. That was my first mistake -- using the "D" word. As soon as Rocky heard me say dinner, he decided it was time to eat, even though it was only 4 o'clock and he normally wouldn't get fed for another hour or so. He started screaming. And screaming. And screaming.
I explained that it would take me about 15 minutes to get dinner ready, gave him a treat to tide him over, and asked him to please not scream since that wouldn't get things done any quicker. Of course that did not work. He climbed down off of Thomas and joined me in the kitchen, screaming. When I tried to get the screaming on video, he stopped, of course. I don't know how such a loud scream can come from such a tiny guy!
I made another apple cobbler over the weekend. Once again, this is from my favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I made a few changes, of course. Like last time, I didn't coat the apples in sugar, which reduced the sugar in the recipe in half. I used a larger pan, and therefore more apples, with the same amount of topping. I also decided to add some apple pie spice. However, I wasn't paying attention (being distracted by Rocky's screaming and all) and didn't notice that there wasn't a sprinkle lid on the spice -- it was open. Therefore, instead of shaking a teaspoon or two into the topping, I dumped the entire jar.
Since I was just making this for Thomas and me and I didn't want to waste the flour and sugar already added, I made the recipe this way. It was extra fragrant while cooking, and, surprisingly, not bad. I don't think I'll do this everytime, though!
Here is the finished product:
And Stella, inspecting (greys are so nosy!!!):
Final story of the day, promise! As usual, Stella kept flying over to the carpet in front of the back door to dig. It was taking me a really long time to make the cobbler because I kept having to pick her up, wash my hands, and start peeling apples again. She was just about to go in her cage until I finished with the apples, when Thomas came to her rescue.When he tries to have her step up on his hand from that location, she gets a bit nippy with him. However, he tried scooping her into his jacket once, and she loved it! I may have posted about that before. I thought she looked so adorable, peeking out of the opening in his shirt, so I asked Thomas to stop so I could get a picture. I didn't even realize at the time that Rocky was climbing up as well.
Rocky did manage to get on Thomas's arm, and Thomas placed both birds on stands.
7 comments:
Rocky might not have screamed in the video but his body language said volumes!! Such a cutie.
He was pretty angry because:
1) I was starving him
2) I was near him
I guess I'll have to try harder to get the screaming on camera :)
very sweet post, thank you :)
what is he thinking with that blanket????
love the pic of Stella peeking out of T's shirt.
I can't believe the nerve of some people, starving these poor defenseless creatures until they're reduced to trying to perform the "eagle" trick just in hopes of a few scraps.
:-)
I need to get the humans to cook that for me.
DJ -- Hope you're doing well! Have been thinking about you guys a lot.
Ashley -- I would love to be inside Rocky's head. I have no idea what he's thinking most of the time. He loves blankets!
DB -- I still don't understand how he thinks that intimidating me will make me feed him, but then again, who knows how he thinks!
BHP -- if you have owners anything like Rocky's, you'll get it faster if you're nice and not screaming :) (Oh yes, I did passively-aggressively feed him last!)
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