Sadly, I have to let you all know - Bibs got crankier and crankier because he became less well and less well - and fell of his perch more and more often and could not get back up easily, would not accept help. After watching him, and antibiotics int he early stages, and consultation witht he vet, we agreed it was better for Bibs to leave this world. That happened Australia Day, about 10.30am 26th Jan 2010. We took him down to the vet that day as bibs had fallen off his perch about 15 hours earleir and slept the night sadly on the floor of his cage, most sadly. He is now with Dog Angela, and two other dogs and a cat, in the garden bed that has become a little cemetary. Bibs has a good spot under an overhanging lavender bush.

Dog Angela got cancer in her shoulder and could not walk - at 45kg, about 100lb, she was too big to carry about even though for the time being we had the pain under control. She had had a good life and was at the end of the normal time span for a dog of her size, anbd seemed very ready to go. The vet came to the house late August so she slipped away peacefully, sleeping first thanks to the sedative, on my bed looking out the window where she spent much of her days as she got older and older. It was very peaceful.

Dog Barnaby arrived 19 days later, fresh from the RSPCA dog home - about 18 months old and he came without a thing, not even a name. He is 8kg, white with coffee and greyish patches here and there, a Maltese Shih-tzu cross. A dear little fellow but as yet we do not know what each other is thinking as did Angela and I.

We have now five chooks - chickens.. lovely birds, who keep sneaking in and eating the dog and cat food. I even found one on my bed, quite content. It was hot this week -so one got a bath.

So - this blog will probably not be updated.. sorry it was so long between posts at the end...

Thank you Joonie and all others for your concern. The weather is indeed dreadful, top temperature for all over state since records kept starting 1850s. fires all over, some only ten fifteen minutes drive from me - Healesville, Chum Creek (Mum and family used to live there) Toolangi, Yarra Glen, King Lake a bit further up (north). Power cuts have not so far affected here which is an answer to prayer..

Hannah under the table again, Lucy Cat and Dog Angela made to stay in and their exit door bl;ocked, air conditioners going in bedroom and kitchen - too small really but made a difference. Iced water for us - I got two ice cubes in my drinking dish! Sort of Brother stayed in too. People were told to stay home and not go out. We didn't.

Have a look at googlemaps, these places are almost Melbourne suburbs out to the east - I live at Croydon which is a suburb a bit closer to Melbourne than the suburb (was a separate town about 40 years back) of Lilydale is. Almost on Maroondah Hwy I am, just by Croydon Rd. I am a lucky boy but my wild brethren and koalas and everything else will be having it tough if not killed by heat or fires..

Newpapers here are The HeraldSun and The Age - website for it is theage.comm.au and the abc website, like England;s BBC - google abc melbourne radio 774 and you will get links to it .. good luck and thank you for your concern everyone

Bibs.

Sad news in the heat

It is very hot here and has been for several days. This is the third day about 44deg C, that is over 110F, and sadly Henrietta Houdan-Hen died in the heat yesterday despite having been given the run of the garden and when last seen alive was under the shade of a tree and pumpkin vines and in fact so cool Mum thought she would go and join them. Both chooks = chickens were given cool showers and iced water with ice cubes in, too. But still Henrietta died. Hannah is now in a temporary house rigged up under the kitchen table so she shares the air conditioning with me - and has an old rug on the tiled floor so she can walk. Apparently lots of chooks are in bathrooms and so on during the heatwave. People have been on talk back radio.. Hannah had two cool baths yesterday too, like many other chooks.

Now Hannah is lonely and Mum is trying to get another friend for her. In a couple of weeks she might get a sister from the same flock as Hannah but the owner is away... and anyway the new hens are not yet old enough to be sorted into hens and roosters.

Let us hope the electricty stays on here - it has so far, but with links to other states to get more electricity failing there has been compulsory two hour blackouts to make sure the whole grid did not collapse in addition to the unintentional ones taking out tens of thousands at times. This added to the problems by cutting out traffic lights and train lines in the areas. Train tracks were buckling, and over 200 trains cancelled due to heat stress on trains, air conditioning, electricity, and so on - they shut down two shorter routes totally and put buses on so they could use those trains on the rest of the lines. Police manned major intersections with the road surface melting and no shade - must have been round 60C = about 140F in the sun for those police. And there are bush fires, lots of them - the firemen are working all round the clock. That must be even hotter. Mum says the fridge is full of food so she hopes the power stays ON. So do I - it is comparatively cool inside with my air conditioner!

Someone checked out the old "fry an egg on the footpath" bit and it worked, only it took 25 minutes.

Bibs.

nice apple

I enjoy all fruit. Especially fresh from "my" garden!

Dog Angela and garden

See my sexy leg! The apple peel I am eating is from an apple from the tree in our back yard and has not had anything sprayed on it. Yum!!!

Don't you think I have more feathers?


I like a kiss and cuddle from Mum.. and guess what? I trust her, so figure that black box thing she points at me sometimes will not hurt me. I remember I used to be scared of it.

Handsome me. I feel like a judge sometimes - and wise, like an owl.

A good boy! ME!!

Hello all

I have had a good time these last few days. Some photos will be coming and three videos too. I look back over the two years almost I have lived here and how I have changed! I now demand, and get, most things I fancy. And instead of just wanting bread and maybe wafer thin apple, I just love apple in chunks, banana, carrot, peaches, eggs in all forms, lettuce, broccoli, celery and all such things. Over Christmas I had a little taste of Christmas pudding and custard and sort of brother gave me nuts too.

And, I think I am wearing more clothes for sure. More fluff in the feather department! I now have something to preen. If you wanted to pop me in the oven you would have to do a bit of feather removal first., Still not much, I know, but I am proud of me growing a few, At this rate, I should be fully feathered again in about 500 years!

Those chooks in the back yard ate lots of apple scraps too. I got some peel and actual apple pieces. OK I had better translate for those non-Australians - chickens, hens, whatever. they lay eggs which Mum likes. So do I! there is I think a short video of them coming soon.

My beak is quite long in these video clips and photos to come - I have another appointment with the vet mMonday. I got some practice in tody when I fell off my perch to the bottom of my cage and my wing became entangled with my food dish. My lound screams brought Mum running but I would not let her help - I screamed louder when she opened my door and tried to help! Gave me quite a turn, that did. A big boy like me falling off my perch indeed. Obviously my balance is not good - I need more feathers so I can fly, at least a little bit.

Dog Angela is very old and grey now, can't take very long walks and spends a lot of the time sleeping. Cat Lucy is no longer a kitten, more like a late teenager, and Henrietta and Hannah Houdan Hen are doing well too. they all send their best wishes.

goodnight

Bibs

Santa and the dogs at the Christmas party

Christmas party to which I was not invited

Christmas update 2008

Hello Folks and I hope you all had a Happy Christmas.

There is much to tell you but in another way, life has been the same for me as ever. For Christmas I got a little bit of Christmas pudding in my seed dish. some celebration, hey? Mum has promised as soon as she sees some nice sweet corn on the cob she will buy me one - and two more for the new residents out the back. She would not buy corn BEFORE Christmas because she said it looked tired and she did not like it. I have been given the odd strawberry, too.

The residents out the back? They come out and walk aboiut and scratch and eat grass and peck at insects and things.. and they give Mum some white things which she is very pleased about. they make a sort of soft clucking noise, which shows their pleasure, and every so often, once a day or so, one of them makes a louder noise too though the neighbours have not herad them. Chooks Mum calls them but I think everywhere else but Australia they are called chickens. these are nice friendly chooks now they are used to Mum. She let Dog Angela out yesterday to meet them 0 the first meeting, soon after they came, did not go so well and one of those chooks became airborn and ended up with her head stuck inthe woodheap and a big fluffy bum sticking out! Mum rescued her but there were no eggs for a day or two. Yesterday though, Mum held Angela and one chook - Hannah, the quieter one, came up and snigffed Angela whilst Angela sniffed her. It looked like Hannah was going to walk through angela's front legs but in the end she veered sideways and went about her grazing business quite unconcerned. Henrietta who is a bit more flighty was unconcerned but did not go near her. Greedy - she just ate. Henrietta and Hannah Houdan-Hen, they are. Houdan hens have a big feathery topknot like a pompon on their heads, and are a reasonably small chook as chooks go, but certainly not a bantam. Not these ones anyway! Mum googled houdan and they apparently came from a village in France originally and almost died out.

Dog Angela and Mum went to a Christmas party - same as last year - at the vet. He only invited well behaved dogs on leads, can you imagine that? People got a sausage, and vet Peter went round and gave all the dogs a liver treat, and the doggie Mums and Dads of course shared their sausages in bread with their dogs. Then Santa came, and gave out a present to all - children AND dogs. Angela got a squeaky hamburger. There are two videos to go on here but SOS has to do it, Mum has never learned. Slow, isn't she? They are currently on my youtube site waiting to come over. You will see there are close to 30 dogs there and more people because they came in family groups sometimes, and the vet staff were there too.

I had a good but quiet Christmas.. I hope you did too! Happy and blessed and peaceful, plenty of food, and very nice. I am indeed fortunate. I wish everyone was as lucky as me.

Love, Bibbie

Time goes by

Hey I just realized it is a long time since I updated you all.

My life goes on – it has been very cold outside, and one day the rain was sort of slushy.  Mum didn’t think it was snow, rather sleet.  I was glad I was inside in my nice warm house.  It is always warm – must be to do with the fire that is kept going in the stove near me – it eats lots of wood.

The last two times I have had my beak trimmed Mum has put her hand in, grabbed my head, and shoved my beak out the wires of the cage.  The vet then just snips – and Mum lets me go.   I still don’t like it but at least there is no towel and I do not get a sore throat from screeching – this only requires perhaps a 10 seconds screech!  One breath – and a few flaps of my wings.

The Olympics are on TV and Mum leaves it on in front of me.  I thoroughly enjoy it.  I liked the diving best – Mum said she thinks I could do that, and perhaps some of the gymnastics.

I am still enjoying all the foods I have had before, and recently the neighbour brought in a piece of banana cake.  I thought it looked good, and it was.  I asked for some as soon as I saw Mum having a piece.  I had egg on toast again for breakfast – earlier in the week it was scrambled egg.  One thing I don’t think much of is porridge.  But I have had a piece of spaghetti and a tiny serve of lasagne.  Mum said I looked funny with bolognaise sauce on my beak!   It too was a tiny piece, and I had asked for it.  I figure if Mum enjoys it, it is worth considering, and then, I ask if I still think it looks good.  Amazing what Hello Cocky said in the right way does!  If that fails, I progress to a whistle, a little shriek or two – and lots of dancing.  I have never had to progress further than that.

Lucy kitten is almost Lucy cat now and has not been on my roof for some time.  She was soundly told off when she did get up there three or four times, and then again whenever she thought about it.  I am quite safe, my cage is homemade and the wire is very close together so she cannot get more than a single claw inside.  But yesterday, I watched with great interest as she came outside my window and sat on the air conditioner to watch me through the glass!  I watched her too.  In the end she gave up first and climbed the ladder to the top of the tank.  I don’t know where she went from there, but later she was back eating with Dog Angela.

There are some wild ones of me flying about and calling out, but – not for me.  Far too cold out there with them and anyway, I can’t fly.   I watch, but not with envy.  A bird never had it so good as right here!

I am going back to some more serious Olympic watching.  The rowing has been good and maybe there will be more things like that on.  Basketball and hockey and stuff, well they do not grab me.

Goodnight!

Bibs.

Hello Folk

I thought of starting with something like "Hello Fans" like Dame Edna Everage but decided against it. For those who have not have the pleasure, I am sure a google search for that person will bring up the details along with those of "her" alter ego Barry Humprhries.

Right now I am sitting in my cage in the kitchen dictating this to Mum using the computer. My house is quite nice clean neat and tidy as of last night, thanks Mum. I am doing my best to make it as bad as it was before you cleaned it - I just love throwing seed all over, ripping and shredding my newspaper carpet, throwing my other foods about - throwing down my water dish so it all gets wet, seed dish on floor too. I just wish I could find a way to get those dishes outside my house totally - I think it would make nice patterns of the floor of the kitchen - dark tiles, nice seed all over artistically then followed by a flood of water to make nice sort of drift lines in it - rahter like those magnetic fields you see if you use iron filings to show them up. Mum is horrified, I can feel her thinking it.

Stewie Sun Conure I hate to say it but my human Mum is pretty hopeless when it comes to blogs. She has sent your request off to my Sort of Sister who lives in London. SoS does all this technical stuff for me but she is very busy so it takes some time to happen.

The winter vegetable garden outside is starting to produce now. Mum has picked some winter greens to go in sandwiches and so on and I got a share! There is not enough to make a salad of them yet - the things are still quite small. Mum said we would eat them tiny like in gourmet restaurants. I enjoyed them. We even had some beetroot leaves along with the silverbeet leaves, assorted lettuce varieties and rocket. The beetroot themselves are nowhere near ready to pull - neither is anything else like turnips, swedes (rutabagas) carrots or parships. You people in snowy winter places - no snow here so things can grow year round if they are not things that like heat and lots of daylight - like tomatoes, green beans, zucchine etc. The broccoli is starting to make those nice little flower bits in the middle - if Mum keeps feeding them every ten days or so they will keep growing and be ready to eat soon!

Well time to get Mum to light my fire - it is quite cold in my kitchen. Which reminds me - I love my cuddles with Mum. I will not get on her shoulder but am thinking about it. I take a long time - might be a year yet before I take that tentative first step. But I just love grooming her - her feathers get SO untidy - and she has nice funny things on the side of her head that are good to nibble and coo into. Some of her other feathers she takes off and then after some time in a white box with bubbles and water (I look through the window in the door) they come out and she hangs them up - sometimes outside but in winter more usually inside on the rack near the firestove. Now isn't that strange? As for me, I have a piece of fluff on the back of my neck I can puff out, almost as if it is a crest! MOST impressive and I am very proud of it.

Bye for now

Bibbles

I forgot to tell you. There is a new four legged person in this house now - Sort of Brother brought it home. I have seen it when it is held up to meet me and am sure I could put it properly in it's place even if Dog Angela doesn't. It bounds everywhere like it is psycho. It is called Lucy - but as far as I know it could be Lucien. It is sleeping, sort of, here, but it chews and scratches Angela's tail and one day it grabbed onto her snout - Mum said she could just see these eyes imploring her to DO SOMETHING as well as showing puzzlement - Angela eyes, then a lump of white fur hanging on, scratching and biting with the white tummy regions in the vicinity of Angela's nose and mouth. Mum hastily removed the "growth"! Angela seems to treat it like a puppy.

Life is pretty boring most days now! I sit and look at TV, out the window, huddle up in my nice warm bedroom and scream for food when Mum is doing anything in the kitchen. BUT - there was great excitement the other day. I heard some strange calls outside - Mum rushed to get her camera - and got a photo of some visitors to trees at the back of the neighbour's land. It was about 50 yards from shere she stood so she used the tlelphoto lens and lost a lot of photos but a couple are good. then we stood and listened - and I could hear them cracking the seed pods ont he tree! Oh I was happy to see them!

In case you can't see them, there are two black cockatoos in this photo - they have yellow crests and yellow under their wings. They are probably bigger than me (even if I had my feathers) and make a harsh sort of call. They blend well into the trees, don't they? There was a flock of twenty or more - Mum had real problems seeing them though she could hear them and see the trees shaking.

Bibs

screams in the night

Sometimes I like to sit on my bedroom door.  It is narrow, and of course on hinges so it moves.  Mum wedges it open with the big cage door shut hard against it, but it still wobbles.  Last night I was sound asleep when – I fell off!  I screamed and screamed.  Mum and Sort of Brother arrived and lights went on – just in time to see me turn right way up and start climbing up from the floor of my big cage.  I was very frightened and very embarrassed.  Once they saw me inside my bedroom instead of on the door, they turned the lights off, said “Goodnight Bibbie” and went back to bed.   

I might give the door a miss for a while – it was almost time for me to choose a new resting place anyway – I tend to spend about a week in each of three or four places. 

Quite shook me up it did.  Mum and SofB (SoS is alright for sort of sister but Mum said I should not say SoB) seemed quite stirred up too as they had been asleep too they said. 

Bibs

I got egg and toast for breakfast today.. here's me eating the egg, yum!

In case you can't tell, that's the yellow stuff hanging from my beak - I got almost hard cooked yolk with a bit of white from a fried egg.











I try to eat the toast with the egg, some of it..

I really enjoy plain toast at the end, too!

Hello Everyone

Well Joonie it was good to hear from you.  You can keep the figs at your place.  If I get another I shall post it over to you!

Outside my window two days ago most of the day the trees bent over and things blew about – winds were the same strength as cyclones – not much rain though.  The electricity went out and as it got dark Mum lit the fire stove and cooked her dinner on it and also put little stick things about, which had a little flame on top.  /She said she was glad for the battery radio!  I missed my TV ..  it came on again after eight hours but by then I was asleep.  BUT I heard this morning, nearly 18 hours later, there are still over 20,000 homes without electricity.  Bet people take more notice when the weather bureau says there will be dangerous winds!

Mum has spread out the garlic that was coming up from where she could not pull it out when ready last season.  She will have lots of garlic in a few months.  No seeds up yet but Mum said it was a bit early for them anyway. 

I had more egg on toast yesterday for breakfast.  MMMM.. and my beak is getting long again so I suppose I will be carted off to the vet soon.

Bye for now

Bibbie.

 

 

Breakfast

The man came in to say hello yesterday and wondered what it was I was eating with gusto.  It was something I like and demand when Mum or Peter have it.  It is..  egg on toast!  YUM!!  Nice soft yolk, squishy toast, all together in my seed bowl.  I grab it with my foot and eat away.  About my favourite.  I got a dish (with about a teaspoon in it!) of porridge-like polenta today.  It had honey and soy milk on it,.  I did not fancy it at all. 

It is cold here now and the fire has been going to keep me warm for several days.  It would be cold outside for those birds I see in the newly planted vegetable garden, even with their clothes on..  I think they are after worms but then again they could be after the seed planted two days ago.  I guess we will all find out when things come up – or don’t as the case may be.

Bye for now

Bibs.