Weekend parrots

We didn't quite get everything accomplished this weekend that we'd set out to do (no hiking and we have one episode left of I, Claudius), but overall, things were great! The parrots were creating havoc, as usual.

For example, Max was contentedly playing with a toy on a stand:Stella, who had been perching on the other side of the room, flew to the other stand to play with a toy (note Max in the background on the other stand):Not to be outdone, Max flew over to the stand where Stella was to try to play with the same toy as Stella!Of course, "play" mostly meant trying to hit Stella in the head with the toy.

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Because we were doing so much brewing this weekend, we allowed Rocky and the greys to be out of their cages. Normally, we cage them during brewing since things need to be sterile, and inquisitive parrots do not lead to sterile surfaces!

I was capping the bottles, and had placed a couple of discarded caps on the side. Max thought she was so tricky -- she slowly circled around me, eye on the cap, and then ran over, grabbed the cap, and ran away to play with it.

Stella started chasing Max to try to get her to drop the cap. She wasn't interested in playing with a cap herself -- she just didn't want Max to have one. Finally, Max had enough and flew to her stand, where she felt safer.
But she wasn't safe from Stella:Shortly after I took this picture, Stella chased Max into the living room, then came back in to the kitchen (where we were brewing). Max played with the cap on her stand for another few minutes, and then came back in by us. Let's hope no errant feathers got in the beer! (They didn't; we were careful!)

I feel compelled to add that I doubt beer caps are appropriate parrot toys. I'm not sure what it's made of -- if the metal is parrot-safe. I know what kind of toy-player Max is, and if she were the type to try to eat the metal, I would have never allowed her to get a cap. She just likes to hold strangely-shaped objects in her foot and in her beak; not ingesting anything. She will not have access to any unsupervised; this was likely a one-time thing. Unless she manages to steal one next time we're bottling!

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Beeps's obsession with me continues. On Saturday, I was going into the garage to get something out of my car. As I opened the door, Beeps flew over and landed on my back. We do not allow the parrots in the garage (unless they are in carriers, going to the car).

Thomas was standing near the door, so he said, "Here, give Babycakes to me." So I did. He stepped up with no problems. As I was in the car, I hear a raised voice. I return to find a bloody husband and a caique snaking his head around repeating, "Pretty baby! Pretty babycake!"

Apparently, just as Thomas said to Beeps, "See, I'm not so bad," Beeps bent down and bit his hand! There is no reasoning with caiques!

Since Thomas couldn't brew while having to watch out for attacks, Beeps went in his cage until he could be more closely monitored. Hormones!

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Pamela asked about my recipe for veggie orzo for the parrots. This started out as a human recipe that Thomas was making, but it looked so unappealing that we're feeding it to the parrots instead.

He took a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, 1 cup of orzo, water, and a bit of olive oil and heated it up. His plan was to add some kind of spice for human consumption, but, as I said above, we couldn't eat it!

I'm not exactly pleased that Max was picking out and just eating the corn, but I'm not too worried about it. The majority of her diet is from her pellets, and other stuff just supplements that. She can be quite the picky eater, so I am very grateful for pellets! Also, because she gets so much exercise, I am less worried about her diet than if she were sedentary.