We are in full fair preparation mode here. (And the guys are in full disparately trying to fix the diskbine mode. As soon as they run out of mowed hay we are going to have to feed winter feed...and that is very, very bad.).
Anyhow, Liz and I hit WallyWorld, she for fake maple leaf garland for her cow display (about the fourth trip...they finally came in) and myself to get the photos I am entering printed and put into frames. We also had to get cat medicine but that is another story for another day. When we arrived back at our wild and crazy domicile on the mountain, the boss was just walking over from the barn with a spec sheet for the gear box on the mower. He said, nonchalantly, "There's a parakeet over at the barn if you want to see it."
WHAT!?!?!? We have been excited all summer over the barn swallows, but a parakeet?
I had the camera with me...I always have the camera with me. So I shuffled off my flip flops and ran for the barn (didn't want to get my only good pair of flip flops all mud now did I?)
I arrived to see this:
I took the picture and turned around and trotted straight back to the house to send Becky, who is bird crazy, over with a couple of fish nets. I didn't want to watch. That is my only son there. I am kinda, sorta fond of him and watching him climb the rafters of the cow barn after that little blue bird was not on my list for the day.
A few minutes later they came to the house, him clutching the poor little thing in his wiry (and astonishingly grimy) hands. They put it in this Plexiglas pet thing that some friends gave us years ago. We don't have a bird cage...we don't have any birds...or we didn't until this one showed up in the barn yard.
Of course I had to be regaled with the rafter climbing stories. (They made me shudder in proper mother mode). The bird was kind of shocked at first, but soon settled enough to hop around the sticks they offered him as perches and to drink from a cut-off soda bottle and tear up baby sunflower heads for seeds.
They named him Leonidas.
They want to keep him.....I dunno.....he must have belonged to someone at some point, but he seems to have been wild a while.
****Oops, forgot to write the thunder part. As soon as the kids got Leo into the house another big storm hit. Wonder if he would have survived.
******Tragic update. although he was eating and drinking and climbing around happily in his cage, Leonidas suddenly keeled over stone dead for no apparent reason. Poor birdie.
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15 comments:
Look at the bright side. At least it wasn't an escaped cobra. I think you should keep him. He's real purty.
When I was a kid, we had big thick ropes hanging from the peak in the barn. We used to swing around a la Tarzan and jump into a pile of loose hay. We, however, were smart enough NOT to tell our mother. :)
Pretty bird. Crazy kid. As it should be. LOL
He's beautiful (the parakeet), Alan is just plain brave.
Sounds like you had an exciting day!
Which fair are you heading for? Normally we'd be getting ready for the Dutchess County fair for next week, but not this year...
I remember as a kid having a "stray" budgie flying around the neighborhood. We hung our birdcage
in the tree out front and it was so happy to find "home" he flew right in and went to eating. He was with us for several years. He belonged to someone as he'd say "pretty boy" (that's what he called himself so we did too) and liked to drink beer. Couldn't hold his likker worth a darn though.
Same as J.B. too, crazy kid, but what kid wouldn't.
I think Leonidis would have survived the storm, but not the onset of winter.
If you keep him in a cage, please make it be a large one... or consider putting him in a bedroom where he can fly around the room during the day and retreat to the cage at night.
Aw crud about Leonardis, but at least he had a lovely and loved last bit of time. I was excited thinking I had someone to give a cage too! The cellar is full of them and husband is sick of them. Guess I never mentioned we have six parrots? (And finches and canaries in a big aviary.) Lovely beasts.
Alan is obviously a typical farm lad for sure :) Sorry the bird didn't make it. He was a pretty little guy.
I know you didn't need more rain - we're getting a cracker right now. You must have gotten them earlier today. We all need to start thinking about building an ark!
Now that was odd.
Farther south of me a little they actually survive the winters and are displacing our native woodpeckers.
Glad the lad did not injure himself!
Fred, Hi sorry about the bird . Alan looks and sounds like me when I was a kid!!!!!! No fear!!!! all well here, looking like I might be done here for the entire job.
Love ya
Mappy
Bummer about the bird. I kinda liked his name.
mummy was serious? bee learn to dwives and den can get birdie? for wreals?
ps tommy called call back sometime tomorrow......
To all, yesterday was so much a rollercoaster for us. It was so much fun to have the parakeet. With so many outdoor animals and dogs in the house I never let the kids have cats indoors or a bird, although they have always begged. For his short span with us there was probably more effort made to keep Leo comfortable than any ten parakeets experience normally. To have him die was awful, even though we have to be accustomed to bad endings. They happen.
There were plans for building him a flight cage (we now have a house cat too after all). Food was purchased...plans were made, but alas, it was not to be.
Thanks for all your kind words
Akagaga, when I get a chance I will tell you about the monkey the boss found in the haymow one day...no lie. And we did that stuff too. lol I have to just make myself walk away and not watch.
JB, thanks you have that exactly right
nita, and all boy for sure
aussie O, we did indeed
Mari, Fonda, week after next. I've never been to Dutchess County, but maybe someday...
Linda, what a neat story! We once participated in the capture and rehoming of a cockatiel down in the village, but this is our first "wild" budgie. We figure he came from the housing development down the road. We have a fancy pigeon that folks down there tossed out when they got tired of her (the kids know them from school and I guess they have let birds out several times) She lives semi-wild and is the only one that doesn't risk lead poisoning when she lands on the tower.
Susan, no way to know, sadly. We think he was very, very young. wing feathers were very short and he was very small and downy
Teri, thank you. You are always so kind....I did see, I think on your farm website that you have parrots and other birds. That must be neat. We know some folks that have an African Grey that talks so convincingly that we thought they had a senile relative locked in the bedroom the first time we visited. He orders their dogs around in their masters voice, with hilarious intent.
Deb, thanks, an ark isn't a bad though. We have a canoe...but it is kind of small for something like this. alan wants to plant rice.
FC, as I told Linda, there are folks not far from here that have turned unwanted birds out before...and we are not so very far from town. I was wondering if they survived and became pests in Florida. Believe it or not when the boss and I were first married we had a monk parakeet summer here. We are far north of their normal (and invasive) range and it was a mighty weird thing to have a large green bird flying around screaming at us
Matt, we miss you! Hope you get back home as soon as can be. And Alan is a lot like you...you know it.
Love you!
AKAgaga, thanks we were really downed out over it.
Beez, get thee behind the wheel, silly
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