Category: Pets

You don’t have to be picture perfect

Little by little, my room is becoming very vacant. I already did a ton of cleaning, going through boxes of crap and sorting out what I did and didn’t actually *need* a few months ago, prior to Emily’s visit. Now I’m going through the last remaining boxes, plus I’m moving all the furniture out of my bedroom and into the spare room. Eventually, everything will come out of my room so we can lay new flooring. But for now, I’m getting enough furniture out of the room so we don’t have to keep moving things around while we’re painting the ceiling and walls. It’s strange seeing my room emptied out little by little; but it’s also … invigorating. Freeing. So much baggage disappearing, that I didn’t even realise was there. I have a hunch I’m going to end up going through the boxes of things I kept yet again, likely trashing/donating/recycling even more. The less junk I have, the better, right?

Granted, we’re going to have to do the painting process all over again, possibly next year. Right now we’re getting the house fixed up, then we hope to move around the first of the year; if we’ve found a new house that we like in a good location. But, by then, I’ll know how much I like this new color scheme and if I want it in my new bedroom, or want to do something completely different. I have a hunch I’m going to keep it though. The Seaside Sand color does look a lot like sand, and reminds me of some incredibly happy times last year. Surrounding myself with things and colors that evoke happy memories is a good way to keep myself in good spirits. It’s one reason I have one of the paintings that was painted especially for me here at work, and the other just above my computer monitor at home.

And on a completely different note… over the last week, my bird has laid another clutch of eggs. Three of ’em, this time around. We thought we had removed the trigger. Apparently not. Now we have to figure out what’s in the cage or environment making her want to lay the eggs. Silly bird.

ETA: The bird laid yet another egg at 6:30 pm. That brings her total up to 6 eggs over the last few months.

Free as a bird

Last August, we bought a lovebird. We weren’t sure if it was male of female, and it’s pretty difficult to sex a peach-faced lovebird, short of having a DNA test done. Since the bird was only going to be a pet, and not for breeding, it didn’t matter to us, so we didn’t want to pay for a DNA test. Based on the behaviors various sites said that males typically display versus females, we’ve always called the bird a “he”. His name is Dublin, which is pretty non-specific, genderwise.

Dublin has not wanted to bond with us properly, prefering instead to bite. A few months ago, we bought him a “Birdy Buddy” to keep him company, hoping that would ease the bonding issues. Dublin seemed to get a little more aggressive, but then one day we caught him trying to mate with the Birdy Buddy and figured that was the cause for the increase in aggression – and it also sealed the fact in our minds that, indeed, little Dublin was one very “happy” little boy.

Today I was in the den, trying to hand-feed him and not get bitten. I dropped a pumpkin seed, so I was trying to get him to move to the opposite side of the cage so I could get the seed without being attacked. That was when I made the most shocking discovery. Our little Dublin was most decidedly female, because in the corner of the cage was a nice little egg that she laid today. Here we thought she was trying to knock up her “Buddy”, instead she was trying her damnedest to get it to fertilize her eggs! I was incredibly surprised, and am still trying to get used to calling Dublin her/she/etc now. By the looks of things, she is trying to lay another egg. Now it’s time to be vigilant and make sure she doesn’t get egg-bound. We’ll also have to take away her Birdy Buddy, since that is the trigger making her think she needs to reproduce. Silly little bird.