Holy Fallen Tree Limbs, Batman!

WHOA.  That sums up my reaction this morning when I peered with bleary eyes out the bathroom window.

What is that, you ask?  Why, that was the limb of the tree I was photographing last night!  Actually, I was photographing UNDER that limb, more precisely.

Not one, but TWO limbs fell due to the weight of the snow, in fact, one right atop the other.  I'm guessing that the weight of the upper limb crashing into the lower limb did the lower limb in, however.  I'm so incredibly sad, because I loved the bushy "skirt" that lower branch in particular made.  I like to use the shaggy tree limbs as blinds when I try to take pictures of birds, also. 

These two photos were taken before the limbs' demises...So sad.  QQ.  I wish I could tape his poor limbs back on....but I don't think it would regrow.  Hubby was only able to move one of the enormous limbs, which were nearly as long as my car.  The other was too heavy to move.  I couldn't help, because my back and shoulders are already torn up and strained from shoveling.

My magnolia tree, Mikari, looks rather splendid in the snow!  The shots with longer exposure times turn out so dramatic!  As long as I don't wiggle...

These are all taken with the (un)"natural" street lamps casting an amber glow over the scenery.

The world is such an ethereal place at 3am.  I'm not certain what the blue glow is, but it's either the moonlight or someone's house illuminating the road down there.

This shot of a car driving up the road reminds me of one of my favourite Moonspell songs, Nocturna.  We live right on the crest of a hill before it grades downwards towards the lake.  It was really amusing to see people with their summer tires on in December trying to get enough traction to make it up this hill.  There was one guy in a Corvette with drag racing wheels on.  He was basically moving at six inches a minute all the way up - it was ridiculous.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but this is Cicada Cottage :)  This is where the most cicadas seem to emerge from during summer.  It's an enormous, beautiful tree, too.

You know how I said we were going to get a lot of snow, right?  Well....this is a snowshot from this morning!  If you're wondering how I got most of these shots, it's because I was also using an umbrella to shield my lense and camera from the flying snow.  I had my tripod, but my nightvision is awful, so please bear with my blurry shots...I can't always tell when I'm in focus when it's dark out.  It's a different world at night...so beautiful.

I keep these cute little lantern lights out pretty much all year...the only problem I have is that you have to turn the inside foyer light on for one side and the street lamp light on for the other side.  They're on separate circuits, so it's kind of annoying.

I was also pissed off, because yesterday, someone (probably the snowplow) hit our mailbox post and knocked out mailbox partially off of it.  Well, this morning, when I peeked out of the window, i also noticed our mailbox had become completely detached from the post and was sinking into the snow.  We didn't get any mail today, so I'm not certain if it's because we didn't have any mail, or if it was because our maillady is holding it for us due to our lack of mailbox.

Arrrrrrrrrr............!!!!!!  And yes, that is a monkey riding a rocketship on our mailbox... :)

Cleaning House: Dining Room! (Cross-posted from LJ)

 Wow, well Hubby and I got the dining room cleaned up nicely. I broke down almost two dozen boxes to be recycled later on, since I don't have any birthdays coming up, and the next major holiday isn't until Easter in April. There's a little bit by way of straggler boxes and his turntable, but I need to sort his room out and get crap moved around before I can put anything else in there. He decided not to take the Yellow Room as his music room, even though it's more spacious. I'm content to have it remain as a closet, since we don't have anywhere to put our clothing. Back at the townhouse, we had a huge walk-in closet that was about the size of my room at my parent's house, and it fit everything including our linens. So the next step is to get some clothing racks to put up, I guess. Hubby doesn't want to keep our clothing upstairs in the attic for some reason, even though that's where people would've kept it in old times. Sigh. Okay, so that still leaves my room, and I still need to clean up the kitchen counter area, because that's hell, too. The living room needs to be picked up, but it isn't nearly as bad as other areas.

So...we were supposed to get 30+ inches of snow, and we have at least 28 inches down at this point. It's up to mid-thigh on me, and I spent a half hour trying to dig my way from the front door to the driveway. Poor Sacha has to bunny-leap from one spot to the next if he wants to get out into the snow to potty. I'm going to dig him a little terrace tomorrow, but my back, shoulders, arms, and hands hurt way too much right now. Of course, watch - I wake up tomorrow and my pathway is completely filled in again. I keep it shoveled for my UPS man and mail lady for the most part, but Sacha also prefers running along it. The other time it snowed this much, I made a fun little mazelike area for him to run around through and he had a blast.

I bought the little Shark steamer mop the other day, and today, we got some distilled water to use with it. I'm kind of excited to see how it does, but my left arm is trembling too much and my hands are kinda screwed on grip right now from shoveling. I guess I'll try tomorrow if I'm not too physically out-of-whack.

I was amazed to see that my black oil sunflower seeds that I spread over a half-inch of soil have already started putting roots down! I just soaked them in warm water for a couple hours, then spread them over soil. They're in those clear plastic clamshell to-go containers, which are great for letting light in, but keeping moisture in, too. It's only been about 3 days now, so we should have sunflower sprouts to eat in a couple more days. Amazing!

Blar...I'm so sleepy, but I think we got a lot accomplished today. We also went out to Wegmans to stock up on a bit more food, just in case we get snowed in. Some fuckhead also smashed into our mailbox post and tore the mailbox up off the stand a little, which pissed me off. We won't be able to see if it's salvagable until the snow melts down a little, but the actual mailbox is steel, so I hope it fucked their car up. People need to stop driving like shit and pay attention to the road and the conditions. Ugh. Anyway...since none of my homegirls are on, I guess I'll do dailies until someone shows up to play.

Cleaning House: Library! (Cross-posted from LJ)

Murdock: locked and loaded, ready to go sprinting off after his sister...

The kitties are so excited that they now have more room ro run around!

The weather forecast said it would be 30+ inches of snow by the end of this weekend! Uh, well, considering that we've already got 6 inches down on the ground, I'm guessing it'll be more like 40+ inches. We're right on Lake Ontario, so we get the lake effect in a major way. I've had single days where we'll get 2 feet on the ground, no problem. It's pretty crazy. I can imagine Mr. Plowman will be super busy plowing our driveways - he's supposed to come by twice a day, but I don't know if he'll be able to get to us. If the roads aren't plowed, he's going to have a heck of a time.

Hubby and I made a huge dent in cleaning up the arcade/library today. He stayed home, because he's come down with a cold that was going around the office and didn't feel up to it. I'm also sick, but I can't sit still for long when I don't feel well, or else I obsess over how horrible I feel. Same goes for when I'm in pain, which is mostly all the time, so I try to distract myself. It's been worse the past week, because of the bi-polar weather changes. My arthritis and broken toes especially disliked the change from warm and humid to cold and dry. Yesterday, my hip simply refused to pop, and I lurched around awkwardly for hours. It was almost unbearable to stand or put any weight on it. I've also been getting weird numbing shocks through my arm to the shoulder if I bend my wrist funny. Whee....

Before I go off on a tangent... While Hubby's not home, I clean, simple as that. SO.....when he saw me cleaning today, he decided he would help, too. We got a lot of boxes and things moved into various rooms, cleaned up and threw stuff we didn't need/want out, and I vacuumed several times. We also laid the brown area rug down in the center of the room and pinned the edges down with boxes to flatten it out. I can't believe how much room we made, it's awesome.

Next, we're going to screw the bookshelves into the walls so they don't fall over. The floors in our 200 year old house slope in various places, mostly down towards the middle of the room. Originally, we were going to have the library upstairs in the yellow room, but we decided to make the arcade into the library, instead. I just don't trust the floor upstairs to hold that much weight. I'd rather have the downstairs floor cave in, you know? We can put supports under the floor, at any rate, without much trouble, which is something we couldn't do for the upstairs room. (And when I say we have a library...I mean we have enough books to completely fill up 7-9 seven-foot bookshelves of books. That's A LOT of weight...)

Eventually I'll have the arcade/library remodeled to have the arcade (which used to be the in-law kitchen) cabinets turned into open-faced shelving and counterspace instead. The floor also needs to be redone, because the refrigerator that used to be there got moisture into the wooden flooring and caused it to rot and mold. It's pretty gross. I'll probably have pergo put in instead of more wood. Another good thing about the library: no baseboard heating. This means that we have wallspace to push bookshelves up against without worry for over-heating anything. I really don't care for all the baseboard heating in our house, because there are some rooms that I would prefer not to be heated. The room I want to keep as our closet and my kimono storage room is one of the rooms I'd like to be a little cooler. Garr...

Tomorrow...err, later today? I want to get my room cleaned up a bit more. I can't really do too much more in here until I buy another dresser, though. It's so frustrating having two dozen boxes with things in them that I can't put away, just because I have no storage. Argh... On second thought, maybe I'll work on cleaning the formal dining room instead. We bought two pretty folding screens from Pier One the other weekend to separate the dining room from the parlour. It looks really nice, and it keeps the kitties out of there, which is great, because they keep crapping and peeing in the potted tree. Then dogface comes along and eats the poop. Greaaaaat. I should've had Hubby toss the tree out today, because it's trashday, but I can't imagine he'd fare well trudging through the snow.

There's always later...I should sleep now, more cleaning tomorrow...yey.

Toys, whee!

 Oh no, no need to get up, Murr.  I'll just sit on the ottoman instead.

 You might have noticed the adorable owl pillow he's sitting in front of?  Hubby got that for me for Valentine's day - along with the adorable little sterling silver pendant below.  I love them so much!!  They're so cute!

 We went shopping at the petstore out in the city and spent about an hour roaming around.  I picked up a lot of neat stuff while we were in there, but for the most part we just enjoyed ourselves.  I had never seen an automated dog wash before, it was bizarre!  Hubby pointed it out to me, or I would have missed it completely!  You just load your dog in and put the money or tokens in, and it soaks your dog, soaps it up, rinses it, then dries it all in about 20 minutes!  It was big enough for something labrador-sized, so Sacha would have fit, but wow...I'd never seen anything like that before!

Kai got a couple goodies, like two new swing perches and a fruit/veggie skewer with a bell on the end that I can stick food on for him to snack on.  He got really pissed off at first, because the food kept moving away from him when he'd go to bite it, but he got the hang of it.  There's nothing quite as funny as a bird throwing a tantrum, but I tried not to laugh at him as best I could.

 My order from Busy Bird came in, too, so I got a bunch of those straw balls and also shreddable paper rings, though Kai doesn't quite understand he gets to tear them up yet.  He absolutely loves the straw balls! I also got him a couple new perches in the order, then I hit up Walmart and picked up a couple more.  His cage has several perches, which is really nice, I also have a couple outside of the cage for him to play on, too.

Kai, and Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Just a little blurb before I go to bed....!

Last night, Hubby, Kai, Sacha, and I were watching Star Trek TNG.  The intro started up, and at the parts where the Enterprise zooms towards the screen three times, Kai freaked out!  Hubby thought it was Kai reacting to Sacha moving around or something, so he hit the rewind button and played the intro again.  Sure enough...!  Kai panicked, and I pet him and cooed to him to tell him it was okay...and that Hubby was mean... But it surprised us that it was realistic looking enough that he perceived it as a threat!)  I explained to Hubby how a bird's vision worked, since they don't have forward-facing eyes like us. 

Poor Kai!  The Enterprise must look like some weird, shiny bird of prey to him!

Early Valentine's Day Dinner, a sad dream, and Kai loves asparagus

I don't know if it was because Kai was sleeping with me last night in his carrier, but I dreamt of birds.  I dreamt that we were in a weird psuedo modern, older house that was abandoned, and we were cleaning it up to make it livable again.  I guess we were moving in.  There were two cats who had been abandoned, and they had gotten into the house through some secret way we couldn't see due to all the junk and clutter.  I finally found the way they were coming in and fell through the hole into a whole new, secret part of the house.  There were several dead birds on the ground surrounding a tree, which had several sickly looking parakeets and cockatiels on it.  Some of them were blind, and they all looked as if they were starving.  There was a bag of seed nearby, and I started filling their food bowls, which were empty, then searched around looking for fresh water.  Some of them were beyond my help, and I held them in my hands trying to warm them up, and I tried to give them water.  Some of them started to eat on their own, but I was so sad...I didn't think any of them would make it, but I started calling up for help.

I woke up feeling so sad and depressed...I don't know if it's because I'm reading a parrot owner's guide to parrot illnesses and diseases, or something.  Kai also had his first vet appointment at East Ridge Animal Hospital.  The doctor was really nice, and we talked about his African Grey, but also about how Kai was doing.  He showed me how to palpitate Kai's pectoral muscles to make certain he wasn't starving, but Kai didn't particularly like it.  He sulked a lot when we came home, and I don't blame him.  He probably wondered what he did to deserve being man-handled by a strange man!  His gram stain came back negative, too, which was great news.

Hubby and I celebrated Valentine's day early, because we both figured it would be more enjoyable on Saturday than Sunday.  I cooked a rack of lamb spread with (mayonnaise, wholegrain dijon mustard, garlic, fresh thyme, rosemary, oregano, cumin, coriander) and breaded in panko, fried golden brown, then roasted. Side dishes included steamed asparagus with browned butter sauce, couscous with caramelized shallots and onions, cumin coriander, and paprika. For dessert, I made extra chewy Ghiradelli brownies served with Starbucks cappuccino chip ice cream.  We also had Chaucer brand honey meade, which was absolutely delicious.  Hubby said it cured his neck soreness instantly!

I let Kai sit on the table, as it has an upraised lip, which although it's slightly curved, makes a great perch for a bird if they're balanced enough.  He was very happy to be brought between the table and his dinner perch for food and snacks.  Before I salt my food, I'm certain to set food aside for Kai.  He gets his own assortment of birdie veggies and fruits to try out, and I'm certain never to touch my mouth before I give it to him.  Kai was really excited about the asparagus stalks for some reason, so I gave him a whole one that didn't have salt on it.  

At first, he just pulled all the leaves off and made a huge mess, but then he got to the white core and he was delighted with the taste.  There were soon bits of outer stalk everywhere: me, the couch, the table, the cat, the floor....

Ollie didn't mind, he really loves steamed veggies.  Mia and Murdock will also eat veggies.

Ollie thinks he wants some of Kai's food.  The cats are all very comfortable with Kai now, and with the exception of Mia begging Kai for food, they leave him alone.  Mia will sit under his dinner perch and put her paw up next to him and meows, which upsets him a little, but she only does it to beg.  Mia also paws at me when she wants food, and she never uses her claws.

Kai even ate a little piece of center cut lamb! (I made sure it didn't have any seasonings on it)

Ollie got tired of getting food on his head, so he switched over to play on Hubby.

Sacha sleeps on the right side of Hubby, curled up so cutely!
Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening.  Hubby and I watched episodes of LA Ink, which got us excited about tattoos again, then he played MAG, and I cleaned and vacuumed.  He has promised me a brand new vacuum cleaner for Valentine's day!  I'm so excited!!!!  This old one is just so awful, I can't stand it.  Every time I want to use it, I have to stop it, tip it over, take the roller and belt off, then scrape all the collected, wound-up hair/fur off the metal part that the belt loops around, dustvac all the extra furbits up, reassemble it, then vacuum up all the mess I created.  Every time... It's so annoying!  Plus it's ridiculously heavy, is a pain in the ass to change, gets dust everywhere when I change it, doesn't seal completely, and leaves a trail of dust as I drag it around.  Grrr.... Anyway.


HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!! Gong hay fat choy!!  And Happy Valentine's day, too!

I'm a cute, wet bird!

Self-explanatory!

I'm a cute, wet bird!

Mom always coos over me when I get washed.

I like looking my best, I never know when one of her

cute friends will come over to coo at me!

My desk set up...

Kai can sit very close to me without sitting on me :) 

His little desktop stand is very comfortable and handy to have.  He takes great joy in having a water dish so close to him, because apparently he enjoys moistening his pellets in water before eating them... I wipe foodbits off my monitor, glasses, face, clothing, desk, floor, dog, and cats daily.

Normal nape!

Poofy nape!

Kai is very happy with my new desk setup!  He likes to watch me play World of Warcraft and often chirps up a storm as he makes comments on my dungeon runs.  he particularly likes when the Druids cast Hurricane.

Hello?

It was the cutest thing!  This morning I came downstairs to get Kai out breakfast and, well, just because we hang out in the mornings together while I check email.  I always call through the door before I open it so I won't startle him, then give him a second to wake up.

Me: Good morning, Kai!  Good morning!
Kai: Hello!
Me: Awww!  You're such a good boy! Hello!  Hello, Kai!
Kai: *whistles!*

It was the cutest thing, I swear!  I've taken to saying "Hello!/Good Morning!/I'm back!" when I come in/return to him, and "Be Right Back, BRB!" or "Good Night/ Nighnight!" when I leave for the night.  I think he is beginning to understand the meaning of my various greetings!  He's such a smart boy!

I think he loves me.

I'm a little concerned about Kai's weight...because he weighed 275 grams on my certificate from Mr. Lewis, but when I weighed him today on his brand new scale, he only weighed 241 grams.  I'm not sure if it's because he's getting so much exercise now and he has a bigger environment to play in, or if it's due to illness.  His vet appointment is coming up this Thursday, so I'm going to have him thoroughly checked out.  He's very active, playful, eats very well, drinks plenty (and dunks his almonds to make a mess), and only really whines when he wants to go to sleep.  I guess we'll find out soon!  I hope he's not ill!  

Kai loves to sit on the faucet when I prepare dinner.

The faucet head turns so he can get a drink from "the fountain"

My dog, on the other hand...has been throwing up red chunks of something the past two days.  I noticed that when I came downstairs, my husband must not have latched my door, because Sacha was in my room for who knows how long.  Basically the door from the foyer opens, then swings shut due to my lopsided old house, so Sacha and cats can come in, but they can't exit.  I noticed that Kai doesn't really care for the red pellets, so I'm guessing that as he tosses them out, Sacha has been eating them.  Thus......red barf.  Argh...!  It's no big deal, really, unless the pellets have something bad in them.  My searches turned up raisin/garlic/onion-free, but I'll have to see what Mr. Lewis says.  My poor baby dog has such a sensitive stomach, and he's quite finicky - he absolutely hates the new flavour of organic wet dog food we bought for him and went on a hunger strike the past two nights.  I thought it was odd that he ate the steamed carrots, brocolli, and squash I made for him, though.  I only realized it was the wet food, because he finally crawled over to me and gave me his pitiful "I'm so hungry..." look, so I got him a bowl of his kibbles and he snarfed that up.

 

Z....z....z....

In an amazing first-time occasion tonight, I realized that Kai really does care about me :) I had read that parrots don't *want* to poop on you, but this was proven tonight. Hubby, cats, Sacha, and I were on the couch watching Lost, and I had Kai on my thigh. He ruffled up and wiggled his tail, which signaled to me that he had to poop...but before I could get him to step up, he backed up to the very edge of the towel and pooped.

On the side of my knee cap...

Now, I know he meant to miss me, but my muscle tapered down a little too much for him to walk all the way down to the very edge. When he was done, he walked right back up my thigh and settled down against my arm again quite relieved!  I could see it on his face.  He looked so pleased with himself, and I was trying not to die of laughter to spare his pride.

As gross as it was to be pooped on, it was horribly endearing! I ltold him what a good boy he was (and hubby made a face and said his usual ew's).  I've dealt with poop almost every day of my life - from horse to cow, pig to sheep, chicken to peacock, degu to mouse, king snakes to prehensile tail skinks, arowana to Columbian tegu,  even Australian stick insects and crickets, which fed my assorted reptiles - so a little bird poop isn't going to kill me.

Sacha likes to wait for handouts under Kai's house.
You can tell by the crumbs on his head...

I talk to Kai every day quite a bit, and he knows quite a few things, though he doesn't say them all the time. I'm trying to teach him QQ, which is a nerdy sort of emoticon in gamer language (I play World of Warcraft *nerdsnort*). The Q's represent eyes with teardrops...so if something sad happens (actually or jokingly), someone will say/type "QQ", or "Q.Q"

Thursday evening, Peaches came over and had dinner with us, but while dinner was cooking (with Hubby in charge of finishing up - I was so proud of him, he made everything perfectly!) we went out to visit Mr. Lewis and crew at Birds Unlimited.  I tried very hard to remember what I needed, which mostly just translated into: more toys....I came back with a small, nifty table stand, which is a lot smaller and less unwieldy than his dinner stand and his play gym next to my desk.

The new stand looks like this.  It's really nice, because it has two food bowls, plus nicely sized diameters for perchs in addition to little ladders.

I also picked out some great new toys and a new grapevine perch for Kai, which I extended outside of the cage instead of inside it.  Kai can be very close to me this way, which he loves, and I can give him treats and talk to him without him actually being on me. 

He's become much stronger and more coordinated now that I've set his cage up with many perches and toys to play on. I watch him very carefully with the tearable straw rings, because I've seen him use them like ladders, and sometimes he gets his foot stuck in one. I think in the future, I'll just get the straw balls. His newest joy is climbing down the chains of tearable straw rings, then hanging upside down from them. It's absolutely adorable and hilarious. The first time he did it, I panicked and thought he got his foot caught, but he turned his head to look at me, then I started laughing. Kai thought it was great fun and just hung there staring at the world upside down for nearly three minutes.

He's SO cute!  

"I'm entranced with your light meter..."

Pistachio time!  "Chio!" 

I stuff his ballies with treats and hang them from various places so he has to forage for them :)

I'm trying to find places that sell the vine balls in bulk, but I'm not having much luck.  If anyone knows of places that have them, please comment with a link!  Thank you so much!