Babies!

           I’m gonna have babies!

          I’m so excited!

          Baby anythings are adorable!

          “What babies?” you ask.

          Baby birds! Zebra Finches to be more precise.

          I was working at my desk one day near the end of last week and kept hearing strange noises coming from the bird cage. It took me a while to figure out what was going on because the activity was happening in the bottom of the cage and every time I stood up Meep would fly to a perch. Eventually, I was able to see that he was trying scratch the wire out of the way to get at the paper.

          Out in the yard I went. Taking a bucket, I collected grass clippings. I found a small plastic flower pot, filled it with grass, and set it inside the cage. It didn’t take long until Meep and Meepette were darting from perch to perch on the way up to the house with grass clippings hanging from their little orange beaks.

          The way I have the house hanging is with the entrance facing away from my desk light. They need dark in order to sleep and they do take naps throughout the day. But in order to go inside they sit on the ladder and poke at the house until it turns and they can hop inside.

          The Meeps aren’t housebroken. I don’t know why they poop in their house, it seems counterintuitive, but they do. I’ve gotten in the habit of taking it out every once in a while, knocking the poop out, and sanitizing it.

          Monday, I found eggs! Two tiny little eggs!

I can’t tell you how thankful I am that I hadn’t dropped the nest when I was taking it down or knocked it down while cleaning the cage. Both of those things have happened to me. When I put it back, I bent the wire hook tighter so I didn’t accidentally knock it down again.

Meep and Meepette weren’t sitting on their eggs. A Google search says they can lay anywhere from two to seven eggs and won’t sit on them until they’ve laid all the eggs they want.

I thought since the nest was made and the eggs laid, they were done with the nesting material, so I took it out.

The sounds coming from the bottom of the cage started again. This time I knew what it was. I got up and got them another pot of clippings.

Is it normal for them to keep adding to the nest once the eggs have been laid? I wondered.

Wednesday I looked and now have three eggs!

Wednesday, when I looked, I see they found a piece of hemp string. I don’t know where it came from. The only hemp string in the cage is what the house hangs from.

Wednesday they started sitting on the eggs.

I can always tell who’s on the nest because Meep talks a whole lot more than Meepette does.

“Peg don’t they look different?” you say.

They do. Meep, the male, has the prettiest orange cheeks. I keep a mesh cover over the bottom portion of the cage to keep the scattered seeds inside and I can’t always see well enough to see who’s who.

“Do you get tired of hearing them meep?” you wanna know.

No. They nap so it’s quiet then. And when he’s on the nest, it’s quiet then too. And they go to bed for the night fairly early, like five or six o’clock. Even so, their meeps simply become white noise and I find I need to listen to hear them. One sound I do enjoy hearing is a soft little mew that comes from the nest. I assume it’s Meepette but don’t know for sure.

Meep was happy with the nest for a couple of days, then I catch him trying to pull the strings from the bottom of his mineral block hanger. I got him more grass. And some raffia. I looped the raffia around the wire a couple of times and made it too tight. Meep couldn’t pull it free. I looked up once, just in time to see him go for a swing under the perch as he held the raffia in his beak. Eventually he got the long tails into the house. I had mercy on him, got up, loosened the raffia, and watched him pull ‘em free and take ‘em home.

Birds are messy. They poop a lot and their cage needs to be cleaned every day.

“Why wouldn’t everyone want birds‽” you ask — sardonically.

I know, right! I ask myself that very same question! — I answer sincerely. I love the birds — even if they are a bit of work.

Something else I’m asking is, what am I going to do with three more birds?

I think of my beautiful neighbor gal. Maybe Steph wants a bird.

She didn’t even have to think about it. “No!”

“How about Jonecca and Aaron?” I ask of her daughter and son-in-law.

“I’ll ask when I talk to them tonight,” Steph said.

They don’t want one either.

Between the nesting question and wondering if Pet Smart buys birds back, I called.

“That’s normal nesting behavior,” Carol tells me. “They’re just trying to make it soft and comfortable for the babies.”

“What am I gonna do with the babies?” I ask.

“They should get along just fine but eventually you’ll have to separate them to prevent inbreeding. We don’t take any back.” I sorta figured they could only buy from reputable dealers with certifiable health checks.

“They’re not hatched yet,” I said.

“Oh. Well, are they sitting on them?” she wanted to know.

“Yes they are.”
          “Sometimes they won’t even sit on ‘em, and sometimes the eggs aren’t viable, and sometimes they won’t take care of ‘em once they do hatch. My advice is to take the eggs out and put ‘em in the freezer. Then you can either throw ‘em away or give ‘em back to her. If you give ‘em back it’ll keep her from laying any more eggs for a while. That’s what I do with my cockatoo.”

“So, what are you gonna do?” Mike asked when I told him.

“I’m going to let them hatch these, then maybe I’ll separate them.” I just can’t make myself kill them.

“What are you going to name them?” Miss Rosie asked when I told her. “You can’t name them Meep, Meepette, and Meep, Meep, Meep.”

“Why not? George did.”

Miss Rosie laughed. “That’s true.”

Even though George Foreman gave his five sons all the same name, and he did it so they would always have something in common, they use their nicknames. There’s George Jr., Monk, Big Wheel, Red, and Little Joey.

>>>*<<<

In crafting news, I’m pleased to announce that my pain in the patootie growth board is finished!

YAY!!

Since the gal never did get back with, I finished it the way I wanted. Hopefully she thinks the flowers are tasteful and not overdone. One of the examples she picked had flowers the whole way down the side with the name across the top. “But mix in some poppies and Lilies of the Valley,” she said. After I did that, she wanted something else. After I did that, she said, “Well maybe nothing but her name, in a blush pink.”

I went back to her original desire to have poppies, because Lorelai calls her grandfather Poppie...

... and Lillies of the Valley for her birth month.

“I don’t like it,” Mike said.

“What don’t you like?” I asked.

“The letters. I don’t like’em.”

“It’s the font she picked.”

Lou, the grandfather came by and picked it up. “That’s really nice. How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“Fifty,” I said. “I was only gonna charge you forty but I’ve got three weeks into it now.”

“Yeah, she told me youse kept changing things,” Lou said, using the Pennsylvania colloquialism for a plural you.

“Not me, her!”

“How much do I owe ya, Peg?” he sympathetically asked again.

“Fifty,” I repeated.

“How much would make you happy?”

That’s a whole new ball game! “Sixty would make me happy.”

Lou didn’t bat an eye, pulled the bills from his pocket, paid me, and thanked me.

I have one more commission to do for Lou then I’m free until Christmas. I have an order for some glass ornaments. Unless I get another commission.

>>>*<<<

             Mike and I went to the fair for its last day.

 He got his Italian sausage and I got my pierogies. Then, instead of ice cream, I tracked down an apple dumpling. It was just okay. I’m always in search of a good apple dumpling. That means a crust that is done with a little crispness to it and an apple that isn’t too hard or too mushy. That’s asking a lot, I know. 

I knew as soon as I saw the sign that this was some kind of a joke. After all, you can’t leave animals out in the sun like this box obviously was.

A peek down inside confirmed my suspicions.  

>>>*<<<

Our church is building a garage for the parsonage. The work was going to be done by the pastor and volunteers. Mike volunteered to find material prices and check into the permits.

Mike, bless his heart, found a company that would come in and erect a steel building for us, doors, windows, and garage doors included, for less than we could build one.

Mike presented it to the Pastor and he was thrilled. “I’m okay with not having to swing a hammer.”

And we all know what it’s like trying to get a work crew together. People have lives and jobs and family commitments and it can be hard to get everyone to come on the same day. Now we don’t have to fool with any of that. Plus, the maintenance on a steel building will be less than a board and batten structure.

The ground work has to be done before the builders come in. We’re lucky enough, as a church, to have a man who can knock down the trees, grade the pad, and frame it up for concrete. David J. started this week and Mike and I went out to take a few pictures for the church bulletin board.

Pastor Jay and his wife Mary have some pretty great children. Luke, pictured here in his logging gear, loves lumberjacking. He loves to run the chainsaw and cut trees down. And Luke knows lumber. He can look at a board and tell you what kind of tree it was.

While we were there, Mary told me the most interesting story about Luke. “He didn’t talk at all until he was four,” she said. “He was playing outside and when he came back in, the very first thing he ever said was, ‘I cut down a tree.’”

I was astonished, “Really‽”

Mary nodded, “Yep. Mind you, it wasn’t a very big tree, he was only four, but look at him today!”

The irony is not lost on me at all.

On one of our visits we took the dogs. My idea was to give Raini some socialization, something sorely lacking here in the seclusion of our mountain home. I had her on a leash and kept prompting her to, “Stay with me,” when she strained at the lead. Raini didn’t cower, she was interested in the smells around her, but at the same time was displaying some signs of being afraid. She did have her tail tucked.

Pastor and Mary have young twin daughters.

Elise came up and I had her hold her hand out to Raini. Raini smelled it then Holly came up behind Elise.

Suddenly, Raini growled.

I alpha rolled her. “NO! Not now, not ever!” I told her. Then I put her in the car.

I was horrified. I’d never heard Raini growl at a person before. Never. Not UPS, not the guys from the electric company, not the people in the vet’s office, not the neighbors. I’ve only ever heard her growl at Bondi and the cats.  

“Want some birch bark?” Pastor asked before we left. “It’ll make your whole house smell like birch.”

“Sure!”

Smelling birch makes me remember being a kid again. Going to the main farm with my dad where they had a soda pop machine. Sometimes Dad would give us soda money. We’d drop the nickel in, open the glass door, and pull out a six-ounce bottle. Pop the top on the built in opener, and swig it like the cowboys drank their beers in the saloons of the old black and white westerns we watched on TV.

Times were simpler then. 

>>>*<<<

I have more pictures.

—Road pictures. Flower pictures. Bug pictures. Even a critter picture or two.

I have more craft stories.

—Other things I’ve made and wanted to share the outcomes with you.

I have a favorite game I wanted to tell you about — again. I’ve told you about it before.

And I have a new web browser I was going to talk about.

But most of all, I have love in my heart for all of you.

 

Let’s call this one done!