murfchck

So I got to do my Monday visit again after missing a few weeks. My little grey baby is there. I can't ever remember her name, mostly because I can pronounce it. (it is from a show like Frozen or something, Obleya, or something else and that may not even be close. lol This little girl is going to be a handful to her new owners. She is quiet and calm, the typical picture of the "perfect" bird. Until you turn your back, then she is into everything. Pulling things off of shelves, getting into the food and eating inside the bucket, leaving nothing behind but a trail of crumbs. You kind of think that all greys look alike but she is just absolutely beautiful. I don't know what is different about her but there is something. Arson, who had a name change because of it closeness to another name who is a free flyer, is now out with the grown up babies. I didn't get to play with him but never fear, she found 4 more eggs so there will be more of his siblings later on! She is going to pull 2 eggs and let mama take care of the other 2, 4 are just to many for her to take care of. This is only her second time to lay and the first time she had 2 eggs but kicked one out. So she is going to just leave the 2 and see how she does, when I asked why she is chancing it, her answer was that you will never know what she has learned until you let her try. Ha, so simple and true. I know I could never breed, she had someone picking up a baby when I got there and I wanted to cry seeing him go with them. Broke my heart that a baby I have know since it hatched will be forever a memory.

So yesterday was cleaning of the cotton ball cages and hanging some of their new Christmas presents. As soon as Koko went back into her cage, she stared me down and started stomping her big foot in her water bowl. That is her way of getting herself wet. All the papers and her plastic tub were soaked under that bowl, but she was happy about it! lol

Merry Christmas from the Murphy clan!

To All My Darling Babies, Merry Christmas eve to you! Despite your best attempts to get on that naughty list, we chose to ignore it! New toys and wood and rope for all! (maybe even a bottle of nuts for the flying white cotton balls!) I want you all to know just how special you are to me, each in your own way. Yes Cotay, that includes you! Bongo you brought me out of a funk when I had to retire, you were my dream and other than this plucking thing, you have not let me down. Always there to give mama a kiss when she needs one. Oliver, you are one silly boy who makes me laugh at your simplicity in all you do. You give Bubba the "dumb ass" look when he makes things so hard for himself trying to move around that stand. Bubba, your antics that get you in these weird situations just crack me up. You are the one who started calling me Pttthhh, thanks, I appreciate that. Gabby, even though you hated me at first and bit the snot out of me several times, our relationship has come leaps and bounds and I hope it just continues to grow. Gus, wow, Gus... You are such a headache with your screaming but the love you give me more than makes it tolerable! You are a sweetheart through and through. Lily, Lily, Lily........ ummm....... I love you so very much even if you beat up the other Too's. This feeling will pass soon and you will regain your composure and be able to play with the others again. You are my baby girl and I love you so very much, just holding you brings tears of joy to me eyes. Cotay, no matter how hard you try to scare me away, I ain't going anywhere! You were in a chicken cage with one branch when I found you. I am sorry I couldn't afford to get you and you had to move in across the street, but you are here now with your daddy so please learn to accept me all the time, not just when you are on the floor. I love you stinker butt! Koko, My sweet little girl. We fell in love the minute we saw each other. You are so gentle and sweet and oddly quiet and I love each of those qualities. You are forever with me. Just give dad a break every once and a while and let him hold you, he loves you to! Chacho, oh my freaking out Albert. I didn't even get to see your face before I fell in love with you and it seems the feeling is mutual. You are such a love and so loyal to me. Thank you for letting Daddy stay in the room with us now without you biting me! I love you Chacho Chacho Man! Ixta, you are such a special girl and very much loved by many people. Your first dad loves you very much and has cried a lot when we give him your updates. Thank you for letting us be a new part of your lifes adventure. You will always be safe and loved. Merry Christmas my clan! I hope I have given to each of you all the love that you have given to me. I love, Lisa

Nope, I think they watched Cotay try and fail and decided it wasn't worth the headache, lol!

I think that would be defined as a Christmas Miracle! Thank you, and a Merry Christmas to you and yours!!

Yeah, my flock is the same. Here is their tree, 10 stockings and they have been getting filled up in front of them all week, despite the naughty-nice list! Somehow I just can't spoil them enough. Sorry about the size, I thought I resized it. Due the plethora of birds and stands this year in our living room, please note the tree is now just garland in the shape of a tree. Only Cotay has flown into the wall trying to climb into it! ( it wasn't a hard hit, that is her on the stand next to the tree. oops I cut her out of the picture but she is there, lol )

Ah-ha! Progress is being made. I let Chacho out yesterday after all the birds had gone back to their cages. He did great. He played around the top and climbed down the sides and back to the top and then Pat had to walk by the cage to get to the other room. Chacho flew of course, but this time he didn't fly at Pat but around him to come into the kitchen! I was cooking so I had to put him back into his cage after that but he didn't attack Pat! I am a little worried I am making a bad decision but tomorrow is moving day for him and the greys. We have been talking about doing this for a while now, but it wasn't fair to Chach that all the birds got to come out into the living room but he had to stay in his cage for safety resaons and to break the straw our decision was made last Saturday when Cotay flew onto his cage and he went after her toes. So we are bringing the greys out to the living room. Ixta and Cotay can use their cage as a stand, Bongo and Gabby will be in the dining room area. Chacho will move in with the macaws since he was brought up with them anyway, they don't make him nervous. Our reasoning is this: when we bring the macaws out to their stand, we can just open Chachos cage and he can have the whole room to fly and play instead of only getting a short time out after they have all gone up for the night. Makes sense in my mind, fingers crossed it will in reality also! We set up the two cages in the kitchen area for Gabs and Bong to get use to, Ixta and Cotay will keep their cages they are in now so that should go smoothly.

Hahaha, I love it! Mine would be sending the same, except for Lily, hers would be: Dear Santa, Can we just forget this year? I will do better next year!

And so the name chosen for me lives on. My hopes dashed that at least one bird would say my name. It has been a week now and every morning I am welcomed by Ixta with a raspberry (Phtthh, which is my name given by the macaws) then a kiss (sound). What do these stinkers do, talk all day about what to call me? I am not sure if I have mentioned that she has also learned that beautiful (haha) Cockatoo scream. It is Lily's scream we know because Gus's scream comes out Ralph, ralph, ralph. I am trying to get this on video because it is quite funny to hear this very loud cockatoo scream come out of a little bald grey, but when the camera comes out I get the evil eye. Since this is her favorite thing to do now you would think I could capture it! She now steps up readily for Pat from anywhere and I get the Cotay bite from her if I even try. The females are all about Pat but that is okay, I still have my Bongo, for now at least.

Ixta started something new yesterday. Every time Pat would ask her for a kiss, she would pull out his arm hair then kiss him. It was so darn cute, I just wish I had the video out earlier when he was trying to reason with her why that was a bad thing to do, how much it hurt and that he "needed" to keep those hairs. lol http://vid1296.photobucket.com/albums/ag4/murfchck/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-12/20141218_181113_zps2drayxuo.mp4

I got the tenth day covered, just waiting. Lol

And now Lily has caught it too. It was her night out with us and all was going just swell until Pat got home. Lily doesn't bite and I had just had her on her back cradled like a baby walking around the house. I put her on the countertop so she could play and eat her cookbook. Pat went to put something in the sink and she ran after him mouth wide open. She did that for over 5 minutes, chasing him around trying to bite him. I had to leave them alone and go put the other 2 up so she could go back into her cage, of course Koko was in Gus's cage and he was on top of his cage so this was something that wasn't going to happen but all of a sudden here comes Pat with Lily at arms length saying she has to go back in her cage even if the others are still out. lol He just isn't having any luck with cockatoo's this month!

Slim to none sad to admit. Lol

Okie dokie, Koko is officially displaying her content for Pat. We can't figure out what happened but she is furious with him and will not even let him carry her from the bird room to the living room now. Oh, she steps up just fine but then WHAM she goes down for the bite. He is a tough guy and was visible shaken up last night. (Mostly his feelings are hurt that she is doing this) But he had blood down his arm and came in the kitchen and asked if I could get her or was going to have to towel her and he did not want to do that. (this explains all the greys flight just moments before and i was still collecting them up, lol) She was under the coffee table so I just bent over and asked her to come to me, she did, stepped right up and I put her in the cage. When I went back into the kitchen I saw blood on my hand, my first thought was Koko, did she hurt herself in that tussle? Checked on her and then it hit me, it was Pats blood from her feet and beak. lol I feel bad for Pat, he is truly hurt. He was by her cage talking to her and rubbing her beak asking her why, what did he do? He could change it whatever it is. I smiled just a bit, I had almost 3 years of this behavior from his Gabby and still have knots on my arm from her bites, I know they are different but the feelings we have are the same, always asking why. On the bright side, I let Chacho out of the cage yesterday to explore things while Pat was in the kitchen and he even walked by Chacho while he was out and no attack from him. Maybe Chacho felt that the "big white bird" was doing a good enough job torturing Pat, he could take the night off! lol

After getting all dressed up for a Christmas party last night, doing my hair, putting on a dress and making the hair just so, I went to say goodnight to my flock. I scared the crap out of them. Bongo went flying all around his cage, Gabby broke 2 tail feathers trying to get as far away from me as she could. Oliver went to the back of the cage and shook and the cockatoo's screamed their heads off. Cotay just watched me very closely. I tried giving them almonds and only Bubba and Ixta would take them. Pat had to go in there and settle everyone down and put them to bed. What I learned was I don't get out much. lol To scare my birds when I get dressed up is a sad thing. I told Pat he needs to take me out at least once a month, you know, for the birds sake!

Congrats!! I know that you are all one happy household!!

I don't know if this will help you any with your sprouting but I had an epic fail this week with mine. 3 days of washing and rinsing to only have my chickpeas and safflower sprout. The sunflower is usually the first and I should have been clued in when they didn't. I also came under attack with gnats this time. I have no idea why this happened. It was a new 25lb bag of sunflower so it must have been old when I bought it. I called the store to see if they would check another bag for an expiration date, but man where they rude about it. All my parrot mix has these seeds in it now and also my sprout mix. So I have wasted a lot of money pre mixing for the freezer. Adzuki, whole peas, pumpkin seeds, lentils, safflower, etc. uhh, not to mention their actual seed mix ingredients. Most of these things I buy online so gotta pay the first bill off before I can repurchase everything again. Dang!!! McDonnell Feed Store blows! I usually would brag on them but this time the lady "manager" was so rude when all I did was ask a question. I wasn't mad, just curious if this was the issue. Won't be going back there any time soon. (okay, I get my pellets there because they special order them for me and only charge me 45 for the 18 lb bag. BUT other than getting that, I won't be back there! lol)

Good Morning all my loves, It is the holiday season, there are many partys coming up for our work places. It is just a haircut! Please get over it and realize it is still me, just with shorter hair that isn't pulled back out of urgency in the mornings. I only do this haircut thing once a year so you all won't freak out but you still do. I stopped having it colored after the first fiasco years ago when none of you knew who I was for days. But a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do sometimes! I Love, Lisa

It is such a bad stand she wouldn't leave her room yesterday. lol She makes such weird noises when you walk in her room. We think she is trying to scare us away but we end up laughing instead of running. It is hard to explain the sounds, one is like Donald Duck talking without words and then a pop sound at the end. She tried this one on me last night at bedtime, all was quiet and then she started this. I giggled, Bongo then followed making the same noise, I started full out laughing. Then they did the sounds again followed by Gabby snorting. My laugh must have been contagious, Bongo, Cotay and Bubba are now all laughing too, I felt so bad having to say good night and turn the lights off. As I dimmed the lights for sunset, my boy Bubba was softly saying "I love". What a beautiful evening.

Hazelnuts come in the mix, I never have seen Chestnuts. I saw them in bulk at Sprouts this month and was wondering the same thing.

Pat experienced a full on attack from Koko last night. It isn't often he has to get a towel but he did with her. Koko and Gus were out playing in the room, Lily was with me in the kitchen, but it was time for dinner so Pat was taking everyone back to their cages. He put Lily in her cage, she started her screaming to come back out and that set of Koko who was halfway up her own cage. Lily stopped and all was calm again so Pat went to pick up Koko. She stepped up just fine then came down quick for the bite. He rolled his arm to get her off balance but she flew to the floor. Game on, she started flying at him with his death in mind, he had to put his hands up to block her from his face, he has several talon scratches on his forearms. He made it around her to get the towel and as she flew at him again he tossed the towel over her, was able to get her back into her cage with no serious bites. This hormonal thing is getting very serious. I have removed what I could that could trigger breeding except the main thing, Gus and the rattle. I can not get near that rattle. she watches it like a hawk. After all that with Pat, when bedtime came around she was as sweet as could be to me, comes to side where I rub her beak and we talk about the day and say our good nights to each other. LOL Pat said last night that he wants a grey bird only sanctuary, lol. The U2's dislike him. Ha, the greys, except for Bongo, only tolerate me so we are even!

This should help dry those tears, well maybe. I laughed so hard I did tear up some. Ixta can out yesterday without a problem. She stepped right up for Pat and he brought her out to Bongo's stand in the kitchen area bay window. She loved it and couldn't wait to get near Bongo. She slowly side stepped her way to him, watching him ever so closely, but when she looked away for a second Bongo beaked her right on top of her poor little head. She looked so confused and now thinks that stand is bad. She still wants by Bongo but that stand attacked her. lol

I got home yesterday after Pat did. He had the birds out already, but I couldn't find one. I looked all around and just assumed Koko was still in her cage with her rattle so I walked on into the kitchen, looked around one more time and there she was, under Gus on the stand. How did I miss that? lol That is all those two do when they get together. Pat swears we won't get any eggs that will be fertile, HA! That is just our luck. But what the heck am I supposed to do? Those two just love each other and want to be together. They both can fly so it isn't like we are making them be on the same stand, they each have their own. Yesterday I was bent over the sink rinsing sprouts with the help of Gabby and Bongo and heard fluttering. Before I could stand up and turn around, I had Koko land on my butt. Pat just stood there and laughed, Bongo was on my arm and Gabby didn't move from her spot on the sink and my hands were full of wet stuff but Koko was very happy to just stay on my butt. Pat finally came over and got her off of me. Gus decided he wanted to just walk around the floor, so he did that until Oliver spotted him and he wanted to be on the floor to, that would have been a mess so Pat put Gus back on the stand and got Ollie back up on his, but only after Pat had to pick him up from the branch he was hanging on that was close to the floor. Of course that is a trick of Olivers, he gets in weird situations he can't get out of and we have to go rescue him but then he will not step off so you are stuck with him until "he" is ready to step off. Bubba has found a fun new game, it is to climb up my curtain and get to the wooden rod that holds tab curtains (so the rod spins around). He gets on the rod and leans forward making it spin him downward, but then he gets stuck there because his weight keeps the rod spinning when he tries to get back up. I now have a partially chewed set of wooden blinds I may try and sell, lol. Not sure when these guys learned all this stuff. When I was in the kitchen, Gabby was taking my paper towel and throwing it in the trash for me. She missed more than she got in but the effort was there. She has never done that before so I was impressed. Putting the guys to bed, we hear, "Hi Koko" which is a normal thing to hear except we were in with Koko and it wasn't her saying it. Either Bubba or Ixta has picked that up now. Never a dull moment around here, well I guess there is after 9 pm, too bad by that time I am in bed asleep!

She is determined to hatch that rattle!