The parakeet came back to feed many times today. I wonder, if I were to put a bird cage with an open door out there, whether it would climb right in and make itself at home–but I’m perfectly happy watching it being perfectly happy.
And yet. Not so much when it hit the window flying in a panic along with the finch flock–going not quite in the same direction as the others, being not quite one of them. It seemed okay afterwards, but it sure sharpened the caged life vs. longer life question about it for me. I tell you–personally, I’ve gone for longer and found it’s okay for it to be that way.
This picture is for Rachel: I’ve started in on the Malabrigo Silky she wound up for me.
Meantime, I got the perfect Mother’s Day present from my daughter-in-law and older son: “Outwitting Squirrels.” Okay, you already know it’s going to be good! And then the author quotes the owners of bird stores in Cabin John and Potomac, Maryland–I bet his kids went to the same schools I did. The guy had great fun writing this.
My favorite part? His tale of a woman in Massachusetts who found some old LPs in her attic. She strung them on a rope separated by knots with her birdfeeder below: no squirrel could climb that stair-eo.
Then she got to watch them trying to jump down onto the top LP to hang downwards towards the feeder. Here came the first: it got spun off into the snow. Hey…! Cool! Do it again!
She described it as a line at Disneyland, waiting their turn. No food but almost as good.
I mentioned it to Richard and his reaction was, “Like the buffalo.”
Wait, the what?
And then he reminded me. After the musk ox got reintroduced to Alaska, the buffalo did. “Where the deer and the antelope play” had nothing on these guys.
Okay, so if I ever seriously think about parakeet cages I’m going to have to provide it a lot of toys. They’re members of the parrot family and can talk; I wonder if I could teach it to knit. Or at least recite my line-by-line lace instructions so I don’t lose my place.