BIRBS

 I was getting ready to put out my Christmas decor, and I was getting all of my birds together. I realize I have so so many. 

Here they all are in a pile (and by all I mean, the Christmas ones only). And here is a video of them all set up:

I have many many more, but I love seeing them all. 

I don't have a problem

 Y'all, I'm obsessed with the Target birds. They're amazing. New ones each season? Heck yes. 

Now this presents a problem. Where to put them in the off season? I found a solution that, admittedly, makes me look a little insane. 

This here is every tiny bird I own, with the exception of Christmas birds, as those are being used for decor right now. They're just so fun! 

Birds, Birds, Everywhere

GUYS. Tonight for our YW activity, we had a bird expert that lives in our ward and is a bird rescue operation, come and bring some birds and talk to us about them. It was probably the greatest activity I have ever been to.

These are amazing, majestic birds, and it was so great to see them in real life .

New Tiny Bestie

Today, as I was chilling, all of a sudden, Husband called me from upstairs and told me to quietly come outside. All riiiiight, I thought suspiciously, but came anyway. I got up there, and lo and behold, there was a tiny family of quails running through our yard, a mama and like, 10 tiny babies! I snapped this pic before they got too far:

You can barely even see them, but that’s the best I could do. Then I saw one go underneath a car in the street, and the rest of his crew ran away. I was basically in tears trying to figure out if he was going to be lost behind! I kept tabs on him, and at one point, he came out from under the car, but as I got closer, he didn’t run away.

Then I was concerned about him frying to death on the hot street in the hot sun, so a neighbor and I conspired to get him into the grass, and hopefully to his family. But when we tried to grab him, he went back under the car. Defeated, and believing everyone’s words of “leave him alone, his mom will find him or he’ll find his mom” (and by everyone, I mean my sister, Husband, and the neighbor) I left him alone. I came out a little later, and he was gone, so I think they did find each other! I’m sad not to have my bestie around still, but I’m glad knowing he’s with his tiny adorable family.

A Hatless Bird

Well, friends, this is a sad day. After 2 days of the hat being on our new stuffed pheasant friend, the hat is off. I suppose today is the day the owner noticed that the hat was on. And instead of finding it funny and leaving it on, the hat is off. It's next to the bird, on a little statue-type thing that's on the desk, but sadly, our friend is hatless. But lets not be too sad about this, and don't worry, friends. I have other plans for this. This is far from over.

Fancy Bird

I don’t know that I would classify myself as a prankster, but I do enjoy a good prank every now and then. The latest one I’ve pulled is a doozy.
There’s a guy (who I actually don’t know) that works in my building. He has a stuffed pheasant on his desk. I see it every time I walk past his office. Since the first day I saw it, I’ve had a really strong desire to put a hat on it. Ideally, I wanted to get a top hat for it, and add a monocle, to make it a really fancy bird. For weeks now, I’ve been plotting this. Mostly I was trying to figure out where I could get the stuff to make this happen. Finally, I went to Hobby Lobby, I figured they had doll stuff there, so I could get something to make my dreams happen.
I went there over the weekend, and was sad to discover that there were no top hats or monocles. Come on! How is there nobody that wants to make tiny fancy dolls? Alas, I had to change my plan. I, instead, chose this hat:

It’s pretty chill, but I still like it. So finally, yesterday, it happened. Chelle and I were walking downstairs, for a drink, and we saw the office was empty. So I ran back to my desk, grabbed the tiny hat, and ran back to the office. Adrenaline running, I hurried and climbed up, put the hat onto the bird, and stepped back to admire my handiwork, as Chelle kept watch. We didn’t want to be caught, of course! So I hurried and took a picture, and we left. As soon as we walked away, and I was looking at the picture, I noticed it was blurry – in the excitement, I shook while taking it. So on the way back, again with Chelle as guard, I slowed down and took a better picture. And now, I present to you, Slightly Less Fancy Bird:

Genius! I don’t know that the bird’s owner will ever find out it’s me, but if he does, I don’t think it’ll matter. If he finds this anything other than funny, it’s probably best if we aren’t friends anyway. But hopefully he sees it and laughs. I laugh literally every time I walk past it.

I now know what Alfred Hitchcock was talking about...

Don’t be fooled by the innocent, wide-eyed look she’s giving you. This is the devil himself, reincarnated to give me hell. And I’m doing everything I can to send him back where he belongs. (Not really, but didn’t that sound so dramatic?!) This is Bird. Yes, this is her name. Pops originally named her Dragoon, but dude, that’s like the lamest thing I’ve ever heard, so I just called her Bird, and after a while, it stuck, and that’s all she’ll answer to now. Ha ha, I say to those who named her. Clearly, I’m better.
We got this little devil for my mom for Christmas years ago. (I don’t remember the exact number. It’s been like 6 or something, I think) When we got her, everyone was excited for the possibility of her talking. Which, being an African Grey parrot, she should be doing a lot, they told us. The two of us didn’t really hit it off, for one specific reason. She likes to bite people, and I don’t like to be bit. Automatically, this makes us not compatible. One day, close to when we first got her, I was in the same room as her, talking on the phone (with my older sister) when all of a sudden, I don’t even remember being particularly close to the bird, but she just up and bit my face out of nowhere. Naturally, I very calmly got off the phone and summoned my sister to come help me. Ok, that’s a lie. After I felt the blood pouring out of my face, I screamed into the phone, (sorry, Katja) hung up, and screamed for Rory to come up to me. (That poor girl was asleep in her room downstairs, but luckily, she awoke at my banshee cries) We looked at my face, determined it didn’t look right, and called for outside help. (Dad) He told us it was probably a good idea to get it checked out, so we went to the doctor, straightaway. They ended up having to put a stitch in my face, on my upper lip. And I got that with no anesthetics. That’s right, I’m a tough person. But I got over that after a while, and thought that Bird and I could be friends.
Boy was I wrong. Ever since then, she has been proving my forgiveness wrong, tormenting me. She is a huge fan of biting me every chance she gets. I’ll be sitting there, looking through the pantry for cereal, and she will all of a sudden jump on my back out of nowhere! I’ll be sitting in the kitchen, reading, minding my own business, and she’ll just jump onto me, and it’s hard to get her off. Those stupid claws are so pointy and they scratch me up like nobodies business. And I’ll be doing a crossword puzzle (I mean word search) and she’ll grab my pen and then it’s like a tug of war to get it back! And she is so noisy, half of the time she’s making noise, its all gibberish that I’m sure she thinks is real words, but all she’s doing is disrupting things. She does talk really well though, just not when you want her to, of course. Oy vey.
But, not everything about her is bad; I’ll give her that much credit. It is fun when she learns something I’ve been trying to teach her. It takes a while, and you have to do it often while she’s learning, but it pays off when she does it. I taught her how to wolf-whistle after I say “How do I look?” which is just a confidence booster for me. She’s pretty good at imitating things, so she imitates cell phones and ringing phones, and sometimes she’ll make a phone ring (she’ll ring like one) then she’ll answer it, and have a mini-conversation, it’s actually pretty funny. She does this little side-stepping thing when she thinks she’s being sneaky, getting near me. Before I move away from her, of course I’m not getting bitten again. She “pumps iron” with pens, and sometimes she throws temper tantrums. Which I know shouldn’t be funny, but come on. A tiny bird getting mad at being left alone? That’s pretty funny. I do think it’s awesome when she imitates me. She can do my laugh perfectly, including the claps I add when I laugh really hard. (I never really knew how I laughed until I heard her, now I’m kind of embarrassed) She’ll dance with me when there’s music on, bops up and down, and sometimes adds her own rhythm by way of claps and stuff. I guess all in all, we get along, but she always has to watch herself, before I’ll take her out. And believe me, nobody will ever find the body…