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

when he saw
my hands approaching, he took off running – right through the whole
mess. It was summer so the butter was especially soft, even runny
around the edges, so Pickles was able to track this mixture across
the counters, over a tea towel and cookbook and across my hand as
he used it to pole vault, rather than step-up, onto the top of the
bread machine. When I went to reach for him he jumped back on the
counter, right back into the mess but his buttery feet slid him
(and much of the mixture) straight into the silverware drawer. This
was convenient. He thinks of the silverware drawer as his own
personal toy box so he got busy throwing knives at me and spoons on
the floor.
    Oh My God. I stood there staring at the
sticky mess I’d have to clean up and I’d just about had it with
Pickles. I tried one last time to get him to step up but my finger
was merely used as a springboard. Pickles bounded up, landed on a
big wooden spoon that had moved to the edge of the counter during
the commotion with its handle sticking about 6 inches out and away
from land. Thinking of it as a perch, he walked the plank. The
spoon collapsed below him and he fluttered to the ground as the
spoon part followed and knocked him on the head.
    He was willing to be picked up at that point
and I placed him and his buttery, sugary talons on a perch while I
went back to clean up the mess. No way would he allow me to clean
his talons and I thought – fine, get a coronary.
    I cleaned what I could, salvaged what I
could, made cookies and ate them in front of him, remarking how
delicious they were and too good to share with him.
    I make treats for Pickles now and then but
that’s been hit and miss. There’s a couple of different kinds of
little snack cookies he likes but a real treat for him, are his
Popsicles. I pour grape juice in a shot glass, add anything from
banana pieces, to Cheerios to nuts and then I cover the glass with
Saran Wrap, poke a piece of chopsticks through both the Saran and
the juice, right to the bottom and put it in the freezer. The Saran
keeps the sticks in place until it freezes so that Pickles has a
perfect little handle to hold onto.
    Spoons are great for enticing Pickles into
eating new foods because he knows that’s
where the best food is kept. Pudding, jello, juice, mashed potato,
yogurt – all come served on this silver platter. He refused to eat
the red palm oil when we first got it and we never knew if he
managed to eat it or spit it out when we mixed it with his supper,
so I started hiding it in a small morsel of mashed potato or
yogurt. Just enough for one small bite in case he tried to eat
around a whole spoonful, leaving the palm oil and then not caring
about it because he’d had his fill. He soon got used to the taste
and even got to the point of eating it straight and undisguised off
the spoon. I got so confident that I started calling it ‘medicine’.
“Look Pickles! Medicine! Mmmmmm. Want some medicine?” as I approach
him with the spoon. He’s thinking – RIGHT ON!
Spoon approaching!! Medicine you say? Well, it’s on a spoon so it’s
GOTTA be delicious! I smirk, and can’t help feeling a little
smug each time he falls for the scam. Of course, I always follow it
up with a mouthful of something yummy on the spoon afterwards, just
so he knows that even if the palm oil isn’t such a great treat,
something good will follow once it’s gone.
    If you’re anything like me, you probably find
it confusing to read about vitamins, nutrition and all the foods
you should feed or not feed your parrots. There’s the basic toxic
items most people are aware of, such as avocado and chocolate, but
the more you read the more you find such things as apple seeds,
rhubarb, apricot and peach pits etc. Just recently I read that raw
potatoes can’t be digested and I had been feeding them to Pickles
for years. You start to wonder where it ever ends and you’re afraid
that one day, you’re going to feed your bird something