Never too late.

Well hello, there! 

I hear you saying: "What is this - a huge, mind-blowing comeback?" Nuh-uh. Calm down, I know you're excited. "Okay, sweet longing for writing, need to do something other than just think about it?" Getting warmer... New Year's resolution? Nope. I know. It's December 31st, 2013. I've been silent. I keep doing this, right? I publish a few posts in a row, with high suspicions that no one is reading (with all due respect to you, reading this at this very moment). I'm picking up where I left off. It was an eventful year. It's not all been good. I'll leave it at that. 

We have a very cute, very sweet addition to the family - his name is Euclide Plouf. 

 

Besides being the cutest green thing in the Universe, he is smart, funny, and gentle. His voice (yes - it's a voice) is soft: he kind of sounds like a mix between a child and a chipmunk. Best description I can come up with. Really. He only squawks when he's pissed off. He has intelligent little parrot eyes, and I swear, the way he looks at us sideways sometimes, it's like he's trying to read our minds or understands things we don't. He is a mini-parrot (a Barred Parakeet, or Toui Catherine in French), and we've had him since the end of August. Hypothetically, his birthday is June 2. That means he'll be seven months on January 2. He used to live in a great big house my hubby (I shall henceforth occasionally refer to him as The Monkey) built for him. It is gorgeous. All wood, no nails, no screws.

Birch, pine, a little bit of wood glue and a lot of patience. My boyfriend built in two side shelves, outside the cage, just for greenery. Originally, we wanted to have a mini bamboo forest on the bottom shelf (on the left) and a betta fish on the top shelf (on the right).

However, little parrots with sharp little parrot beaks love to gnaw and bite on things, which we were told this specific little guy was not inclined to do. Well. He's eaten through four bars so far, effectively opening back doors to his home and undertaking his very own renovation projects, which in itself was not really a problem. There is one problem, though: this bird, sadly, does not fly. His flight feathers were cut off before he ever learned how to, and although these feathers eventually do grow back, the reflexes are just not there. I mean, he flaps his wings and kind of floats off for a few moments, then plunges to the floor and hurts his chest. He is an excellent climber, though - quite the acrobat! He has launched himself off the four-foot high cage once too many times. It's too high for him. So he's now moved into a temporary home, as we will build him a nice one out of wood and metal this summer. In the meantime, this is the temporary setup.

A la cucaracha, a la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar...porque no tiene, porque la falta, una pata pa' caminar...(or something which sounds like that, anyhoo.)

 In this picture, he is attentively listening to his favorite tune, La Cucaracha, sung in Spanish by my man. The day we welcomed Euclide in our home, he was understandably very nervous (as were we). As The Monkey started singing the song, this feathered cutie fell asleep. So it became his theme song, and the only way we know to calm him. Life lesson to me when it comes to parrots: they are not cats. I've still got some learning to do. Lots of it. 

Alright, folks. Go make the food for the New Year's bash. That's what I'm about to do. Oh - and nice to see you again. I've missed you. See you next year.