Sage is recuping nicely

and has regained the weight she'd lost. I was going to put her in with the flock for a few hours, but she faked me out and escaped. Is now hanging on her favorite perch...

what the hell attacked my knee while I was sleeping?

Woke up with rash/bumps that stung like hell. By this evening, they've opened, drained serum and a couple had little stingers or micro-thorns emerge. This pic shows a couple thorns emerging on the bottom left and right.

Sage, my lovebird

Sage has been with me for 12 years, purchased initially as an emergency companion for a fischer's lovebird who'd unexpectedly lost his wife, Peaches, to egg yolk peritonitis. Sage, a peachface, lived up to her name, showing great wisdom in her approach to the grieving Papaya.

It seems her fate has been to be 2nd wife. When Papaya died, she paired up with Saki the cockatiel, who'd recently lost his mate Sushi. When Joey, my peachfaced lovebird died, she paired up with his mate, Domingo the sun conure. After Domingo passed, Sage was part of my last trio of birds until I brought home a budgie, Periwinkle, this past February. She's always liked to sit on my head or on the back of my chair. Recently she'd taken to preening the back of my neck.

2 nights ago, Jerry bit Sage badly on the toe, and she very nearly bled out. She is in recovery now. It looks like the toe is lost; time will tell for sure. More important, Sage is in a pretty fragile state. She had already inexplicably lost considerable weight in the past couple weeks, so she may have already been starting into organ failure. She does seem comfortable now. She's ignoring her healthy foods, but I'm letting her feast on her fatty comfort foods: peanuts and millet spray, and hand feeding her some gatorade with Prime vitamins mixed in to at least help with dehydration from the blood loss. She likes to sit in her swing in the sun and gently rock most of the day.

In my nearly 30 years with birds, I've found that 4 days tells everything. They either make serious recovery, or they go down. So we have 2 more days to know which way she will go. My first senegal, Bennie, had a toe tip amputated and nearly bled out. He survived and lived another 10+ years, but he was much younger than she was (in senegal years) and he never regained his robust former self.

Sage resting in her hospital cage:

More Squash Magic

I'd mentioned a second squash plant that self-started across from this summer's mystery squash. It flowered but I didn't know if it was in time to set fruit. I should have looked a little closer!

So this year I've been gifted with summer and winter varieties. Meantime, the dark green soccer ball is starting to yellow. I'm still guessing a pumpkin!

And here are a couple gratuitous pix of the boys resting in the shade...

Bunny Grooming Day 2

S'mores

Jammy Dodger

Nilla (who wouldn't hold still)

Nilla, this time in focus and posing (although you can't see the color bands).

I think Nilla may be "cream" rather than fawn. The descriptions I've red mention a ruby cast to the eyes. Nilla's eyes usually photograph red, unlike the rest of the bunnies who consistently photograph with chocolate brown eyes. "Cream" is described as a "pink almond" shade, which certainly fits him now that his wool is coming in.

Bunny Grooming Day 1

Teddy Graham

Hydrox

Keebler

Figgy Newton

full moon wouldn't let me sleep last night. ~4am

Squash magic

I stopped growing squash some years ago, back when the garden transitioned from hobby/learning experience to survival. Squash is easy to grow and cheap to buy, so it made more sense to put my effort into harder to grow and more expensive veggies.

Then, 2 years ago, a squash plant appeared unexpectedly in the spot that I'd prepared for new blueberry bushes. Not just any squash; this was a gargantuan monster that looked like it belonged in a Japanese Godzilla, nuclear holocaust movie. It turned out it was a Hubbard squash, and I tried to follow the instructions to store it, but forgot to check it in February and by the time I remembered it, too late.

Last year, a squash started itself this time in the manure pile just outside the pasture, where I dump when the snow is too deep and time too short to take any distance. At first I thought it might be a spaghetti squash, but then it turned into some sort of pumpkin, which I harvested it too early so it was tasteless. It did, however, give me a fun couple of hours making my first jack o'lantern in, oh, I have no idea how many decades! That one I did get a pic of for posterity:

 Well this year the squash is back in the winter manure dump, but this time it's nearly, but not quite, as big as the hubbard and it's turned into a patch that runs into and along the new emergency paddock I built this spring. It's looking again like some sort of pumpkin, but much bigger and rounder than last year's. Also, thanks to the better rainfall, there's actually a couple of them growing that I can see. There's also a second plant across the path from the main one, which started a few weeks later so has just finished flowering. Don't know if there will be time for it to fruit!

Jake in the morning

I swear he thinks the camera is stealing his soul. He'll be smiling at me and then I turn on the camera and instant dour, sour face and he turns away! I did manage to catch him looking out the window this morning.

Early tomatoes

When I first started gardening here in Maine, back in 2004, by starting seed in doors and planting out as soon as possible -- typically not until Memorial weekend -- if we were lucky we'd get a few ripe tomatoes by early September. I learned the joy of fried-green tomatoes.

The last few years tomatoes by September have been a sure thing. This year, I decided to stick to the cherries -- Matt's heirloom. I was stunned to get my first ripe tomato on August 1. It took a couple more days for the rest to start ripening, but still. 12 years and tomatoes are coming a month earlier than ever before.

Goldfinch

I was feeding my budgies breakfast when I looked out the window and saw something bright yellow in my beets. Grabbed my camera and snagged this pic:

I backed away from the window, ran out the back door and slipped around the corner to the side to try to get a closer shot, but he'd already left. Oh well...I'll be watching for ya, bud!

My orange-butt bee

After the storm

3 boys; 4 girls

The bunnies have matured enough to id by gender. I've separated the boys off from the girls. I started to wean the girls as well, but Snickers and Nilla in particular seemed stressed after their first night apart. So I removed the partition. There is no rush. From what I've read, they won't reach sexual maturity until 4 months. In the meantime they get along great and Snickers and Nilla seem particularly close. Snickers didn't showed any sign of territorial behavior when Oreo had gotten in with her.

Now that they're separated, I can tell the individuals apart when in their home (I still put them together for playtime; the boys are getting playful but not aggressive). And so they have been named, all still in the cookie tradition. From left to right the boys are Keebler the elf, Teddy Graham and Figgy Newton.

 

Starting at the bottom with Nilla, and going counter-clockwise, the girls are Hydroxya, S'mores and Jammy Dodger.