Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain Read Online Free Page A

I
almost died. Especially since it contained a nice chunk of turd.
You can dress our family up but …
    Anyway … the way we get the nutritious foods
that Pickles doesn’t like into his fussy little body is with birdie
breads. I put a bunch of his favorite stuff in the bread and add a
fruit or vegetable that he doesn’t like – chopped up fine, or
pureed – and it takes on the flavors of the other things in the
bread that he does like. Sneaky, but effective. I’m sure Pickles
doesn’t have the best diet that a parrot could have, but we try. In
the beginning, we tried removing seeds, pellets and snacks and just
leaving fresh food in his bowl but he would literally starve
himself. I know this works for other birds but it didn’t work for
us. Pretending to eat something ourselves would work occasionally
but usually he’d just roll it around in his beak then spit it
out.
    Pickles loves to be part of the supper-making
process. It seems there’s nothing more pleasing to a parrot, than
to hang around on a counter, explore and knock to the ground,
anything in sight. It’s an opportunity to flat-foot, run, hop, skip
and jump. Is there anything more precious
to watch? Pickles carries out his counter business as I prepare his
supper. This involves snapping off a square of his frozen birdie
bread, heating it up, breaking it up, mixing Hemp Seed and Herb
Salad into it, dumping it into his twist-on supper bowl - all with
short interludes of Spoon Beak Tapping – and then it’s off to Ride
The Supper Bowl back to his cage. The twist-on bowls are handy
because he gets a little merry-go-round ride at the end.
    During the whole process, Pickles commentates
about his supper. “Supper? Mmmm, supper.” He’ll cock his head and
look sweetly into my eyes and ask “Gonna eat some supper?” “No” I
say, “Mommy’s eating something different.” He stares into my eyes,
in deep thought. “Doncha wanna eatcher supper?” he asks. “Not now”
I answer. And off he toodles in search of mischief, all the while
asking, “Potato supper?” No. “Bean supper?” No. “Carrot supper?”
No, we’re having a banana bread supper. “Mmmmmm”
    Pickles will always step up for a Ride On The
Supper Bowl; over the years we’ve made a game of it. We had to do
something to get him to step up off the counter. He’s usually
pretty good about stepping up when we want or need him to but, c’mon , the kitchen counter? But now, no
matter how badly he doesn’t want to leave the counter, he really,
really wants to ride that supper bowl. And then, once the ride is
over, he’s really happy to have a nice warm supper. However, he
will not dive in until he’s sure he has fresh water to wash it
down. If we forget, he will politely ask “Fresh water?” or “Be
right back with the fresh water” or make the gurgling sound as we
walk away in our forgetfulness.
    Sometimes he likes to feign falling off the
bowl as we’re riding to the cage. “On no!” he cries as he lowers
his whole body down until only his head and talons are visible
above the rim and then he’ll throw his body back so far, that he’s
almost upside down. All the way back to the cage, he’ll whistle for
Neeka – figuring that the dog should join in this game or at the
very least, act as spectator.
    Pickles loves counter tops but it can be
quite the pain in the ass to have him there. I have to either clear
everything off before I put him there or I have to watch him like a
hawk. Once up there, he travels at bullet speed trying to get into
anything I was stupid enough to leave there. Nothing’s too heavy
and nothing’s too scary. I’ve discovered that a toy he would
normally find a little disturbing at first, is assumed, by Pickles,
to be forbidden fruit if it’s on the counter, therefore it must be
grabbed as soon as physically possible and before it’s ripped from
his beak.
    Once, he flipped the sugar bowl into the
butter plate just before I managed to remove them and