Hot Yoga and Hot Computer and Cool Dimitri

The computer's been down for a few days (overheated with an extra hard drive. Now the drive's been removed and it's running better than ever, especially as I've removed the side of the CPU). Wouldn't have minded so much as everything can wait but as I've started the parrot behaviour mini lessons I haven't wanted to miss anything. Finished one lesson but was doing an 'extra credit' and couldn't send that. Anyway, all good now.

With much anticipation went to yoga with a couple of friends. It was a new 10 week Hatha yoga course. Unfortunately it was a very beginner course and I feel confident that I can handle a bit more than what was on offer. Overheard the instructor say that at the end we'd be doing real postures. Ack! The other thing that didn't sit well with me was the meditation. I've just got a thing, unreasonable as it is, about starting a class with a meditation and then having another at the end. I'd rather have one at the end, when the body has been warmed up, stretched and then cooled down. The postures themselves, with the focus on breathing, are a kind of meditation. They still the mind and bring me into the present. So the search continues.

Dimitri is starting to trust me a wee bit more. If I didn't follow our interaction so intensely I probably wouldn't notice it but it is definitely happening. He's more willing to wait and see what I'm up to before he hurries away. Sometimes he doesn't move when I have to pass him to get to the cages, he just watches. He's targeting well when he's in the mood. More often now he wants to come directly to the seed dish for treats and as it's sitting very close to me on the floor I let him. Last night and this morning he was closer than he'd ever been. I decided to slowly move my hands about, nonchalantly dropping one hand to my knee or lifting it to wipe the sweat from my face (literally - very warm and humid here). Sometimes he'd walk away a step and then resume eating. Other times he didn't budge. Very happy with that. He's also more responsive to my voice. If I tell him it's all right, he does listen. I've also been c/ting him for looking me in the eye. I think part of the lack of connection was the lack of eye contact. Not the staring predator sort of eye contact but a quick look in the eye so that he sees me as ME and not some huge behemoth waiting to pounce on him.

That's the thing with cockatoos, no matter if it's a cockatiel or a sulphur crested. There is so much somebody in there when you look into their eyes. A thinking feeling being. It's humbling. They're like cats. Cats look you right in the eye, mano a mano. You can't fool a cat and you can't fool a cockatoo. You can fool dogs however. Dogs are great, but they are seduced by kind words and the hope of a pat. Cats are cynics. Hell, they've been burned at the stake. Why wouldn't they suss out our intentions before committing themselves?

Was going okay on the book until the computer cacked it, hence writing and warming up in here. Just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Time Travellers Wife. Bless those dear friends who go out and purchase the best sellers. I just wait for them to show up in some op shop. Ditto movies. I know if I wait long enough they'll be on television.

I've been kind to myself however. For years I've hung on to Isobelle Carmody's Darkfall hoping I'd find the sequel. I did. On Fishpond.com.au. Ordered it and two other books by her. They arrived this week. It's like having Christmas all over again. Then I crack open the second book and find there's actually a sequel to the sequel! Ah well, some pleasures are better after prolonged yearning.

Just a quick note about the weather. It's awful. Worst rainfall for January ever. The grass is cooked. Brown and yellow with lashings of faded khaki. I've always welcomed the heat because it brings the rain but this is ridiculous. If we don't get good rain soon we will be in trouble as we'll have nothing left in the paddocks for the horses. I can't even begin to wonder how the birds and critters will fare. This is their time to get fat for the winter. The juvenile galahs have disappeared, including Amos. Is this normal or does it mean something more sinister? We're hand feeding Silda (rainbow) who was released last week. She's still making smoochy faces through the bars to Pablo and now we find that Nidji, who was supposed to be flightless, can fly. We'll hang on to Nidji for awhile, make sure he regards this as home and then release him too which means Pablo will again be on his own. I don't wish for some rainbow to have an injury but we'll have to be on the lookout for another companion. He might be getting a complex by now. This is the third bird he's lived with.

Jackpot Dimitri and the Faf-about

Banner day today. Dimitri, after deciding to have a pellet breakfast, was still interested enough to come down from the tree perch and make straight for the ball. Jackpotted him for that. Oh happy day! He did it a few more times before wandering off to climb the T-stand. But that was enough, after he'd eaten too. What a smart bird!

Have started the PBAS mini lessons finally. Didn't want to start until after the holidays, then my monitor died, but we're up and rolling. Even the first lesson I found hard. The use of language is such a habit -to define behaviours with vague descriptions instead of what is actually happening. Made me really think about what I've observed with Dimitri and then to put those observations into a language that wasn't one of constructs (see I've learned a new word already!). Then the final question, with some observed behaviours and what our construct might be - had two different answers with opposite meanings. Thought it could either be happy or aggressive. Am sure I will be set straight.

Very hot today, sweat pouring down my face as I write. Haven't done any yoga for 2 days and feel it. Was ill day before yesterday (menopausal cluster headaches-damn things) and still a bit seedy yesterday. No excuse today however. Must get into good habits. When I'm working I'm up at 5 and into a yoga session. When I'm not, as I haven't this entire week, I sleep in and when I do get up at 6, the animals are clamouring for breakfast. Then I have breakfast with R and the day is well and truly started. Have to lift my game and get some kind of program going. Have been good and answered unanswered emails (still working on a snail mail to my aunt) and tidied up some loose ends. Haven't touched The Book.

Quite annoyed with myself too for in that halfway state between waking and sleeping I thought of some device that would move the book forward. I was excited enough with the idea that I didn't bother writing it down as I was sure I'd remember. Wrong! Been bugging me ever since. Guess the only way forward is to start writing and see where it leads.

While on holiday I've done a little backsliding re spider solitaire. Have played my last game for awhile (gosh, I hate admiting in public, and even though no one reads this but me it is still possibly public, that I'm such a slouch. Here I had a week off and I could have written another 5 to 7000 words - but nope, I just faffed around and tryed to look languorous - course the monitor died but that's no excuse as I wasn't without it for more than a couple of days). Anyway, my goal today is yoga and writing and now that I've bared my soul in here I may as well get to it.

dimitri dreaming

More than a month has elapsed since the last post. Feel it too. Miss the chance to write, like being stopped up and needing to unplug. Anyway, while I remember I want to record a dream. I was in an unfamiliar house and went upstairs. In a bare room with windows were 3 or 4 cages with birds. Some were galahs but there was also a sulphur crested cockatoo. The cages were clean and filled with fresh water and seed but I was still horrified as I either didn't know these birds lived here (who was looking after them?) or did know and hadn't bothered to check on them. The galahs were flightless, likes the ones I have; broken wings or the like but it was the S. C. cockatoo that broke my heart. He was feathered but the feathers were thin and wispy, like an old man going bald. I got him out of the cage and he was so desperate for touch that he melted into my arms, snuggling and pressing as close as he could. So I cuddled and stroked him and the love and relief he felt was almost tangible. There was something about getting him into a larger cage rather than a cocky cage, or setting him free but the details are fuzzy.

As usual I have no idea how to interpret this dream. Perhaps it relates to Dimitri. It always comes back to Dimitri. A couple of weeks ago, while in that half state between sleeping and walking I had an epiphany. We had not made any progress whatsoever. I could feed him by hand but it was the same story, sometimes he would take the treat, other times he would back away as though I was coming at him with a hatchet. That morning, however, I recognized I'd positioned his tree stand all wrong. I'm so assiduous in telling clients that birds need to have a safe place, a place where they feel protected, where they can hide if they want and I hadn't followed that most elementary of advice for Dimitri. His tree stand was positioned out in the open, the open being he had the verandah wrap around screens in front and french doors into our bedroom in the back. He was always exposed, poor thing and I was too dumb to notice.
The very next day I moved his tree stand against the wall beyond the living room french doors so he always has something at his back. I can't do anything about the wrap around screens but as he is under cover with a wall at his back I trust he feels safer. He acts as though he does. I put a perch in the place where the tree stand used to be so that he can reach his vegetable skewer and have a change of perspective if he wishes - and sometimes he does. In front of the double doors (screened) leading outside, I've placed a large bark covered and very chewable branch. He uses that too. To guard against falls I've surrounded the tree perch with pillows and saddle pads. He rarely jumps now but sometimes he misjudges (and using one wing to try and right himself just throws him more off balance) and falls.

So this has helped. I've also modified my own behaviour. I no longer try and feed him by hand except when he head bobs and shows extreme interest. Instead I just toss millet seed onto the wood table adjoining his tree perch (where his pellets and water are kept) every time I go onto the verandah. Yesterday he voluntarily came over and took some from my fingertips which was lovely. But I didn't push it. If he shows any hesitation I lower my arm or back off.

I've also been c/t'ing him to target a plastic ball with a bell inside it. It is obvious to me now that the clicker made him nervous. Not because of the noise but because of the intensity with which I attempted to *train*. The intensity of a predator. So it is taking much longer for him to target the ball because of that. I'm not worried however as I finally feel I am on the right track with him. The more I know him the more obvious it becomes that he is an extremely sensitive bird and my tramping through his life with hob-nailed boots, despite good intentions, has had a deleterious effect. This morning was the first time he intentionally touched the ball for a treat. I was chuffed.

It all ties into yoga. With the intensity of my wanting to be friends I actually made it more difficult for us to be so. Now, with the mindset that we will go at his speed rather than me trying to force it it is starting to happen. Which of course means removing my ego from the equation. I could fool myself (and did) with saying that I wanted to be friends for his own good. For instance, he hasn't had a bath since he's been here. That's months. No way could I mist him yet every time it rains he gets excited and I know he wants to be out in it hanging upside down like any good cockatoo. For him to enjoy the rain I'd have to get him in the cage, which he hates, and take that outside - very stressful, or allow him outside under his own steam. But in order to get him back in again I'd have to towel him or chase him back up the steps. Disaster. So for his own happiness he had to be friends with me. Not a very successful precept.

Strange too that I am more relaxed around him as I don't have an agenda anymore. Well, that's not entirely true or I wouldn't try and shape him to touch the ball but as the ball is on the floor he can walk away if he feels it's too stressful - and he does. More and more, however, he chooses to hang around and get treats for walking in the right direction and jackpots for actually touching it even if it's only accidentally. I'm very happy for both of us.

Dreams and the Not So True

From the window I see four horses exchanging gossip around the water trough. Two tails swish; perhaps they're not happy about the subject. "Is it a rumour that we'll have to stay in this over eaten paddock because She says we're too fat? Surely not. I can still see my knees."
Barely. Freya and Dakota both have crests of fat on their neck. My forefinger sinks into flab before I can find a rib on Drifter and Pagan has no waist. Only Balthazar, being the streamlined thoroughbred that he is, looks about right. They'll just have to tough it out. The only other alternative, and one which will have to be introduced later in the summer, is shutting them up in the yards for most of the day. Everyone, including me, hates that. But it's better than foundering.
On another subject altogether. I was thinking about the nature of truth today. Yeah, the big philosophical subject. Truth and how little of it I manage to write. Was it Hemingway that spoke about the difficulty in writing one true sentence. His writing is so spare yet powerful (must reread him one day). But I'm skirting around the subject. I don't write the truth in here. I haven't learned how. Sure, I write about this and that, the outward happenings but as soon as I start to zero in on what I'm really thinking or feeling, the censor raises it's mighty head and silences me with a 'what if'. What if someone read this. What if I'll be judged. What if I'm not really a nice girl with nice thoughts and nice intentions? I wouldn't know the truth if it reared up and bit me. Sometimes I think of something that I think I'll write about; something of importance (at least to me - because it's the Truth) and just as quickly I'll forget about what it was I was going to write about. I am concerned with vanity and other people's opinions (did I write about, truthfully write about my well-deserved humiliation and shame of a few weeks ago? No, it made me look bad. Because I was bad and it's important to myself that I lie enough to keep the illusion alive).
How difficult can it be? Bloody difficult. Nigh impossible. But I'll never write one good sentence unless I can rip the veneer away. It takes more bravery than I possess to be an honest human being - and I'm not talking about garden variety honesty. I've no difficulty with that kind of honesty. It's the honesty within myself that I don't access.
Woke from a nightmare last night. Driving along at night with the headlights illuminating a verge teeming with big red bears. Bears and wolves? Bears and wolves and moose? There were two other frightening critters on this one lane road but I don't remember what they were. Got to a house, my house although I didn't recognize it, and somehow made it inside. Went into my sister's room. White bedspread on a neatly made bed. Two scarves, one red, one dark hanging from one of the posts of the fourposter. Something, I don't know what, on the foot of the bed. But she wasn't there. Hadn't been there for quite a while. It felt empty and abandoned. Went to my room which had a bathroom/shower attached. Closed and locked the doors, drew the curtains but could hear the bears snuffling and crashing through the shrubbery outside. I was so frightened I woke up. Yet the bears, as I drove through them and while in the house, didn't try and attack. No broad bear paws swiping at the car. No yellow bear teeth tearing at the house. Just me and the dark and the sounds of bears being bears.
Now I think dreams that are powerful enough to wake me have a powerful message. Not that I know what that message is, I don't. Bears, bare? Nakedness. The nakedness of truth-telling? What about my sister and that spartan bed. I remember thinking at the time that it was like a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on. Yet it was abandoned. Who abandoned it? Me. I don't live up to my sisters expectations. I love her yet I feel distant from her too (now here's a bit of truth). We found during our last trip together, how we tiptoe around one another. Here I was thinking she was the one with the chip on her shoulder (and I was the good girl with the easy going temperament) and she thought the exact same thing of me. I don't get it. I really don't. Tiptoeing around my sister. Impossible. Unheard of! She's the only person who really knows me. But perhaps not so much any more. We have spent too much time apart, led lives that are vastly different so although our beginnings were shared (and no one understands the family home like a sibling), it is no longer the majority of our lives. And what about those scarves, although they were more like squares of cloth than scarves that were meant to be worn. What is the significance of them?
Many years ago I kept a dream diary. I dutifully wrote down every dream I remembered, and I remembered lots! Kept a notebook by the bed and wrote down key words and passages as soon as I awoke. Transcribed them into the journal and then attempted to interpret them. It was abysmal. I think I successfully interpreted one dream from the hundreds I recorded. How do I know? There was a Eureka feeling. Unmistakable. I just knew it was true. A warm wash of success and release. All I ever got from the other dreams was frustration.
But it made me think. Who dreams these dreams? Why are the dreams so inaccessible? Why is it important that they are impossible to interpret and understand? What danger is there in understanding dreams? What am I hiding from myself that is so dangerous? No suppressed memories here. I wasn't abused by either parent or any other person until I was 17 - and by then even though it knocked me for six for a few years, I eventually recovered. My life is happy and well rounded. I don't suffer from bouts of depression. I'm generally happy and content - so why the mystery?
There was another snippet too, of me thrusting my face into another face and saying, "Boy-yea, not Boy-er." My middle name is Boyer, like Charles Boyer, French not English. So, what was all that about?

Bats, Birds and the Golden 'Keet

Back from the gym, that delicious lethargy from muscles well used. Outside a white horse stark against the dark green shadowed grasses. But it's hot and going to get hotter. 36 the radio man says. Was thinking on the drive home how I would like to build an enclosed bird verandah on the north side of the house. The birds are on the western side and although shaded by torreliana trees it is still far too hot. The aviary birds have the benefit of the huge shady poinciana tree and are cooler there than we are in our unair-conditioned house.
The bats in the colony on the edge of town were already waving their leathery wings in an effort to cool off. They look like hundreds of black eggplants hanging from the branches. Spoke to one of the bat carers this week. Dozens die from the heat, he said. Mums leave their babies behind when they venture off to feed at dusk. Many don't return and the babies, unprotected, die. The old age home which borders the colony won't let carers in to rescue the babies. I don't see how they can deny them as the creek and creek edge is crown land. Or so I thought. It seems odd that bats which are native to Australia have so much trouble coping with the heat. But imagine being black, hanging in full sun (the trees provide very little shade as although they are tall, their leaves are sparse) with your head wrapped inside your black leather cloak.
Dimitri and I were doing really well. He was staying put when I'd walk onto the verandah and hardly moving when I offered him millet. Then disaster. When I gave him a sunflower seed he lost his balance and fell, sliding off the wide metal hooks which anchor the wood bird ladder to the tree perch. Then later, he fell off the end of the table branch when it tipped under his weight. My fault. I'd done the big clean up and untied the end so I could properly clean the table. I thought it was heavy enough on the large end not to budge under his weight. I was wrong. He slid right off. Thankfully both times he was unhurt. But he was unnerved and frightened and as I was present on both occasions I was linked with 'bad things'. He was very edgy this morning and wanted nothing to do with me. I accept that and realise we've just taken a few steps backward. We'll be fine. I gave him some millet when I got home and he was less anxious than he was earlier. R has replaced the metal hooks with sturdy wood and I've retied the branch. I want no more accidents!
I'm saying 'Millet' in a happy clear voice whenever I feed him now. Just finished reading Alex and Me, Dr. Irene Pepperburg's book on her 30 years with Alex, the famous grey parrot. Although I won't be training Dimitri to speak with the rival/model method used in the book, there's no reason I can't label everything I offer him in the hopes that one day he may make the connection. I've never been keen that any of my birds should talk. Caruso, the S. C. Cockatoo, spoke a few words but it was more a parroting of what was said to him. I'm not sure he knew what the words meant - yet when I ask Marvin, the galah, to kiss me, he does. He obviously makes the connection between the words and the action required.
Released Amos, the juvenile galah, this morning. He still favours that leg a little but he can walk, perch and, boy, can he fly. I couldn't see the advantage in keeping him any longer. If he can walk on the ground to feed (he can), and perch (on the overhead wire no less) and fly (like an expert) than he's got as good a chance as any juvenile galah - which isn't all that great. Only one out of ten make it through their first year. Terrible odds. I've put out seed and water on top of his aviary. Troppo, another released galah, stays here alot, even spending the odd night inside the aviary with the others (I think he regards it as a little holiday; food laid on and protection from predators so he doesn't have to stay hypervigilant all the time) . Maybe he will buddy up with Amos. A galah on his own doesn't have near the protection as a galah in a flock with many eyes scouring the skies for predators.
Saw something extraordinary a couple of days ago. We've had probably 70 rainbow lorikeets hanging around in the mornings interspersed with a couple of dozen scaly breasted. I was walking down the driveway when I glanced up at a commotion in the silky oak above me. There were half a dozen screaming rainbows and in their midst was a yellow one. Bright daffodil yellow from head to tail with a head the colour of the inside of a ripe guava. By the time I'd attracted R's attention it had flown. Saw it again the next day. Saw the back of it was also yellow but with a hint of khaki green. I know those people who can't leave things well enough alone have to breed colour mutations to improve on nature so the bird might be an escaped pet or aviary bird. Or it might just be a natural mutation. Unfortunately with colouring like that it is a marked bird. The dark green backs of rainbows and scaly-breasted make them almost invisible from the air. Not so a bright yellow bird. At least he's a strong flier. He's the Golden 'Keet, related in name to the elusive Golden Fleece.
We have a white throated gerygone nesting in the potted umbrella tree right next to our front door. She and her husband spent two weeks building the nest. Well, she built it and he encouraged her with song. She is all of two inches long with a white throat, yellow breast and grey brown back. We were amazed that with all our comings and going and the whippets living permanently on the deck that she would chose that as a nest site. Perhaps our proximity was part of the plan for no hawk or cuckoo (which lay eggs in their nest) would dare an assault. Yet now that she's laid her eggs and is nesting she's become quite flighty and leaves the nest when we step onto the deck. R has put up a sign, 'Bird Nesting, Go Around' with arrows to deter visitors from coming up the steps. I hope she hatches and raises them successfully.

writing and a strange coincidence...and Dimitri

Where to start. I've been writing, not much but enough to get going again. My secret? I joined a writers online group. Simple really. Reading all these posts from aspiring (and published) writers and it occurs to me sitting on my great acre complaining does not get the book written. Then too, today there were a couple of posts, sample writings from other group-ies, and well, they were bloody awful. Not that I'm good, even okay, but my fiction isn't abysmal. Really. I do believe in it and myself enough to say that. It is bad form to compare oneself with others. I'm hot, you're not. Not good I know but I admit I'm shallow enough to be encouraged by other's sad attempts.
Good writing is something I want to emulate. I read it and enjoy it then re-read it trying to figure out how they did it (and made it look so effortless). Don't re-read bad writing, that would be fruitless torture, like going to the dentist to fill in a spare hour. But bad writing serves a purpose too. Not to say bad writers don't improve. This second book of mine is better than the first. The fifth book should be better than this one.
Here's an eerie coincidence. Several xmases ago I was given a notebook with a hand tooled leather cover as a place to write ideas in. I used it once. When I was looking for something the other day to jot something down in I found it again. The only thing I had written in it was an idea about a woman who jumps from a bridge, a man who grabs her skirt and manages to hang on and a third man who assists the first man in pulling her over the parapet and onto the bridge. I was thinking of something along the lines of The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, a book about people who die when a bridge collapses. I read it so long ago I don't remember the details except it was a sort of question posed to the universe, why were these people chosen to die on this bridge on this day? In my idea I was thinking of the separate stories of the 3 people leading up to the meeting on the bridge and what happens to them afterward. The weird part is this. There is a cop show on television showing real cops being filmed going about their cop business by onboard squad car cameras. This particular segment dealt with a woman attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, the cop who grabs her skirt and keeps her from falling and another guy who helps pull her back onto the bridge. I didn't even remember writing the idea down but when I read it I certainly remembered the cop show segment.
The other thing I have done is sign up for an online course with Dr. Susan Friedman on parrot behaviour analysis for caregivers. Unfortunately there won't be an opening until 2012. Fortunately there is an online sort of mini-course which helps prepare one for the real thing. I've joined that group too. Have also ordered a couple of books, Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor (which will help me help clients at work) and Clicker Training for Birds by ... a Menopausal Moment. Can't remember her name. Have also ordered a book by Dr. Irene Pepperburg about her relationship with Alex (not the scientific tome).
As for my relationship with Dimitri. Same-o, same-o. We are no closer to being friends than we were when I wrote last. What is different is my attitude. I've stopped trying so hard. Nor am I taking it personally. We'll go at his speed. I'm sure this course and the mini-course will help immensely. But in reality it's not vitally important that we be friends at this point. As I write he's sitting on the t-stand perch just outside the office. I put it there for him. There are many other places he could choose to sit but he's chosen that one. Interesting...although as it's time for their afternoon seed (Tach is on the monitor glowering) I shouldn't feel too complimented.

Rescued Baby Galah

November 7, 2009. This post was lost in the draft folder. So it actually predates the previous post. Don't know how to switch them so....Yesterday R went down to the yards to make up the evening horse feeds. I heard him calling my name, that urgent note permeating his voice that one hears only when something's amiss. Met him on the deck. "Come quickly, it's a galah." And it was, a soaking wet juvenile sitting forlornly on a stone near the horse trough. Everything but it's head was wet. When I picked it up I discovered it had an injured leg. The leg was stuck out straight and the toes, two forward, two back, seemed frozen in a forward position. It did have feeling however as when I gently pinched one of the toes it drew it back. The bird was also extremely thin, a sign of coccidiosis. When I saw its first poo later I didn't need a microscope to confirm the diagnosis. Dark vivid green and very watery.
We don't know whether the leg injury came about from a fight to survive in the water trough or is an existing one. It's obviously had the coccidiosis for awhile because it's so thin.
Don't want to call him an 'it' anymore. I've named him Amos. Of course, Amos may be an Amy but Amos will do for now. Having to crop feed him as he's so juvenile. In the wild Mum and Dad would be feeding him. I loathe crop feeding. Always fear that I will get the needle in the wrong place and kill him. As it was I overfilled his crop today and he aspirated a little formula. I felt like crap afterwards. Too much too soon and I should have known better. It's just that his thinness is a worry. If they are too thin for too long their liver is affected and there is no coming back.
The good news is he is far stronger and his poos are looking marginally better. I'm erring on the side of caution with the crop feeding so that's a good thing ... for awhile. Later on we'll have to up the ante so that he actually gains weight instead of just being maintained. It is so hard on them, however. Who would want some long steel tube thrust down their maw? Not me! Everyone stresses; Amos, me and R, who holds him while I mess around with size 8 crop needle and 20ml syringe.
Had a couple of bad days with Dimitri. Not with him. He hasn't changed. He's still as unpredictable as ever; accepting treats one minute and terrified for his life and limb the next. It was me, depressed and anxious, that was the problem. It is such a learning process about myself and the many many things I need to work on (like grow up for instance!).