Recent Things for Wings Order

Here are pictures of my recent Things for Wings order.

A variety of wood pieces

Other toy parts

And I finally got 3 Poi Garden toys.

Crystal's Bird Toys Order

I placed an order with Crystal's Bird Toys for the first time on the weekend and I couldn't be happier with the service and the products that got delivered today. The toys are almost too pretty to give to the birds :)

Here's the box before opening it. Once the wrapping was off, the box used was from photocopier paper ... just to put the size of the box into perspective.

I had to take a picture of some of the pretty birdy stamps on the wrapping paper

And this is the box FULL of toys!

4 Candy Drops - some with spruce and some with balsa wood

4 Neptunes

4 Pine Trees

4 Spin Me Around's

4 Grub Packs

And this is the whole order together.

I'll have to get pictures as Lucy, Jessie and Kylie destroy them :)

Long Weekend at the Trailer

Since Kylie joined our flock after we closed the trailer in 2010, this was her first weekend there. I've made great progress with getting her to step-up onto a perch in preperation for putting her into her trailer cage. However ... I should have introduced the trailer cage earlier than the day we wanted to go there. She finally went in, but it took about an hour. I know what I need to work on. Anyways, Kylie was pretty quiet and didn't eat much on Friday after we got to the trailer, but by Saturday she was back to her normal self. She really seemed to enjoy herself. She got to enjoy seeing lots of animals and lots of people came by to visit with the birds.

Lucy at the trailer
Jessie at the trailer

Avian Organics Quick Serve

Made some Avian Organics Quick Serve for the birds for breakfast this morning with some AO Cazula mixed in. The birds dug right in and really seemed to enjoy their breakfast!

Avian Organics Order

Here's a picture of my recent Avian Organics order. I bought the following:

- Aztec Crunch

- Jungle Trails

- Avian Organics Quick Serve

- Cazula

- Calypso Carrot Bird Bread

- Blueberry Mini Sticks

And here's a picture of Jessie enjoying an almond from the Avian Organics Aztec Crunch

You can purchase Avian Organics products here: http://www.avianorganics.com

New ShopVac

Our current Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner has been taking a beating lately, so I talked my husband into getting a ShopVac. I told him it has two purposes ... we can use it in the bird room and we can also take to the trailer to vacuum in the summer ... we are never happy with the small vacuums we get for the trailer. So he went for it. So, we tested it out on Saturday and it works like a charm.

New Toys

The following are examples of toys I made this past weekend. Using a mixture of parts from Wings for Things (an Online Canadian Parrot Toy Store). In the dixie cups, I hid WW pieces of pasta.

Video - Lucy, What does daddy do?

This is Lucy's response when you ask her what Daddy does :) She's quite proud of herself because Daddy's watching her.

Jessie Receives Brat of the Month Award

Parrots are just like kids sometimes ... you love them like crazy, but you don't always like what they do. Yesterday, right after breakfast I removed their bowls with their fresh food and put the bowl with pellets in. Within minutes I could hear Jessie rattling his bowl around and here's a picture of the end result. When I came up to assess the damage ... of course he laughed at me.

So out came the cage clips again. The mess I can handle ... the 2 bowls of fresh pellet food he wasted yesterday ... not so happy about that. He tried to do this again this morning, but I fixed his little red wagon.

And here he is looking at the mess he made.

Quality Kylie Time

Last night, Kylie was out with me while I was watching a movie. Most nights she's content on her cage or the jungle gym. Last night she started flying over to me and kept landing on my head. After she did that a couple of times, I let her climb onto my shoulder and she hung out there for about half an hour while I watched a movie and was on the computer. My relationship with Kylie is really taking off now. Here's a few pictures I snapped last night .... I didn't get any when she was on me because no one else was home and I didn't want to spoil the moment by going to get the camera.

Jessie Being Cute!

Jessie was being my brave little dude this afternoon and was hanging out on the jungle gym ... he usually afraid of it.

Haven't figured out how to embed a youtube video yet, but here is a link to a short video of Jessie. You can hear Lucy in the background saying 'Jessie, Jessie, Jessie' at 0:04 seconds and you can faintly hear Jessie saying 'Peeka' ... missing the boo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy3NlL7vBd4

Jessie enjoying scratches from mommy ....

with his eyes closed, you can tell he's really enjoying it

Jessie just being cute!

Random Pictures

Kylie and Jessie enjoying a Papaya Veggie Crisp treat from Avian Organics

A wet Lucy

Lucy posing for the camera

How to Dye Wood

Today was wood dying day. Here's a list of supplies that we used:
- 18ft of 1 x 2 pine ($12.00)
- 6 x 28ml bottles of food coloring (2 red, 2 blue, 2 greed) ($10.00)
- 3 plastic buckets ($3.00)
- 1 Mitre Saw
- 1 Drill
- 1 Handy Husband :)
- 1 plastic table cloth
- Newspaper
- Wire baking racks
- Paper towels
- Rubber gloves

1. My husband set up the mitre saw. The wood clamped on the left side of the picture was the guide to make sure that every piece cut was 1 1/2" wide

2. Here's the bucket of wood

3. I wasn't here while he was drilling holes in the wood, but here is a picture of the drilled wood and I had him drill holes in some popsicle sticks as well while he was at it.

4. Here's the bucket of green dye. I mixed 4 cups of boiling water with 2 bottles of green food coloring. I was happier with the color and how it turned out.

5. Here's the bucket of red dye. I mixed 5 cups of boiling water with 2 bottles of red food coloring. This was the first color I mixed and also the weakest because I added so much water.

6. I mixed 3 cups of boiling water with 2 bottles of blue food coloring. With adding less water, the blue came out stronger than the red and green.

7. Here's a picture of all the wood pieces and popsicle sticks colored.

125 Wood Pieces

40 Popsicle Sticks

Total Duration: 2 hours to cut wood / drill holes; 2 hours to dye all the wood.

Lessons Learned: I didn't really anticipate that the wood would float .... yeah I know, blond moment ;) So for the next time I will need to find something to hold the wood down into the water. I think I'll try to find 1/2" thick wood the next time so the pieces are a little thinner.

Getting Prepared to Cut/Dye Wood

So with my husband being a carpenter and having all the tools, I'm on a mission to cut and dye wood this weekend. I'm getting my supplies together. I got 3 kids easter buckets for $1 each at Walmart today, got the food coloring and picked up 18ft of untreated pine.

My husband is going to cut the pieces and drill the holes tomorrow morning and I'll be on wood dying duty tomorrow afternoon. Watch for further posts with updates throughout the process.

Lucy Playing in Blankets

For the first time in months, Lucy wasn't obsessed withn going to see Kylie. Here are some pictures of Lucy playing peekaboo in blankets.

And here, Lucy was looking to see what was behind the table

Kylie / Jessie

Kylie playing with her ball that matches her ... it was a funny game to keep throwing it on the floor and watch mommy run to get it :)

When I got tired of playing catch, she moved onto chewing

This was actually a first for me. Kylie and Jessie were out of their cages at the same time for almost half an hour this afternoon. They just did their own thing and played with their toys on top of their cages. They were good birdies!
This is Jessie trying to get away from a new toy I put on top of his cage. He's a typical phobic Senegal and is afraid of new things.