on the needles

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The Good News & The Bad News

Well the good news is that it looks like all the finchey good thoughts have worked. Neville and Rowena's two chicks that were tossed have been successfully adopted by Godric and Minerva!

On the day that I transferred the chicks to their new nest, I found one of them back on the floor of the cage shortly thereafter. But I stuck him back up in the nest and kept my fingers crossed. I left them alone and tried really hard not to peek into the cage every five minutes. I finally checked the nest today and there were the two chicks looking happy and begging for food. Yay! The other two eggs from Neville and Rowena's nest should have hatched by now - all the eggs in a clutch usually hatch within a day or two - but these two haven't. I hope they will - but if not, at least I feel good that the other two chicks were saved.

The bad news is that one of the Society babies died today. I don't know what happened to it. I think it may have broken it's neck. These little birds do that to themselves sometimes. They startle so easily. The Societies more so than the Gouldians. I know it's "just one of those things" but I still feel really awful when I lose one of the birds.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Drat!

Turns out Neville is a tosser too!

I found two chicks on the floor of their cage just now. Luckily they were both still alive and very squirmy so I think I found them in time. I immediately put them into Godric and Minerva's nest along with the three other eggs which hadn't hatched yet. I'm pretty sure only two of those eggs were fertile though.

Cross your fingers! It looks like it will work. Minerva flew right back into the nest and snuggled down so looks like she's okay with it. As long as Godric doesn't get upset it should be fine.

Send good finchy thoughts this way!

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Lovely Things: Buddha

Welcome to my new blog topic: "Lovely Things".

There are so many lovely things in my life - I thought I'd share some!

Today my lovely thing is this:



I got this Buddha last month. Isn't it beautiful? It's a large, solid block of mahogany, hand carved by an artist in Indonesia. Buddha has one hand in the meditation position



and the other holds a lotus flower.



He sits on an antique cupboard that I inherited from my mother. It was serendipitously a perfect fit - especially since this sits in the entryway of our house and next to a flight of stairs. So it feels like everyone gets a blessing in this house, coming and going. :) It's such a tactile piece - sometimes I can't resist giving him a little pat on the head as I go by.



And no, I'm not a Buddhist. I'm not a religious person, but I do consider myself a spiritual person. And I've always been attracted to religious art. I love Catholic Madonnas, Islamic script, Hindu gods and goddesses, the Star of David, crosses, and Buddhas of all kinds. I appreciate it all. Religious art is always making a statement. From the most delicate medieval carvings to the six foot high plastic Jesus lawn ornament - it's all trying to tell us something. And since religion has played a huge part in shaping every aspect of human society, looking at people through the lens of their religion is fascinating to me. Especially because religious art tends to be so coded, so symbolic. I love the detective work of deciphering a religious painting. It's like peeling an onion. But ultimately I find - that although the actual symbols are different, the form of expression is different etc - the need, the meaning, the inspiration behind all religious art is pretty much the same. And it is that difference and that sameness that makes up the human experience, isn't it?

Well - those are some of the things I think about every time I walk past my Buddha. But mostly, isn't it just a lovely thing?

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Monday, March 12, 2007

More knitting...

More FO's:

In my last post I forgot to mention that I also finished up a EZ Baby Surprise Jacket. And since then I have finished another Beehive hat, and the Opal socks that have been languishing on my sidebar for awhile.

Here's a totally sloppy photo of Bettna:




I'll try to get a modeling photo this weekend....but at least you can see how the colors turned out.

I've started a sweater for hubby and almost have the back done. It's "Ash" from Rowan #39 in All Seasons Cotton. This is the photo from the magazine but I'm using Mocha Chocolate and Blackcurrant rather than this pink and grey combo.


So far I am LOVING knitting with the All Seasons Cotton. Gotta get more of that stuff...

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Gouldian Babies



One of the new Gouldian babies with Harry Potter and his gal Jenny Weasley. They are supposed to be a couple but they have yet to decide to give it a try. I'm hoping they will because Jenny has a blue gene in her and that would result in some awesome babies. This was the only photo I could get of Harry's back feathers - unfortunately the camera flash washes them out and makes them look turquoise rather than bright blue.



The baby and Harry fluffing up.




Looking curious. Isn't he gorgeous?




Harry is a very sweet bird. He is curious and has a very even personality. Some finches can be quite nervous. If you look in the nest box you can see his daddy Godric sitting on another clutch of eggs. At least I'm pretty sure there are some eggs in there - haven't looked. But knowing Godric and Minerva I'm sure there are - they are very industrious. After this second clutch I will take the nest away until next year.

Also - I split up Sirius and Rowena since Sirius tossed all the chicks last year. I paired Rowena up with Neville. It took awhile but they finally have some eggs. So far though I have only seen Rowena sitting on them so I'm not sure how well this will turn out. I didn't take any photos because I don't want to disturb them. Godric and Minerva are very confident birds and could really care less what I do around their nest but most other finches are more nervous.

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Society Finches



Baby Society Finches! See how they all pile up on top of each other?



These are the two Daddy birds. The chestnut brown is John and the tan or fawn colored one is Paul. I named them after the Beatles because if you look really closely at the feathers on top of their heads you can see that they have Beatles haircuts. Funny head feathers is one of the prized traits in Society Finches. I have to admit they look really cute that way.

As far as I can tell almost all the babies look like John in their coloring except today I think I saw one that looks like Paul. Several of them have the funny head feathers. You can see it a bit in the picture of the babies in the nest.

Sadly we lost one baby the other day. They sleep with their heads hanging out of the nest and I think he must have fallen and then gotten too cold overnight. That's the hazard of having so darn many I guess.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Forgive Me Bloggers....

...for I have sinned. It's been three weeks since my last post.

Since it's been so long I'll just throw you for a loop and start with a confession:
I totally love Nancy Grace.

Who's with me here? What? Is there no love for Nancy Grace? She cracks me up. Honestly, she's just so nutso. I tune in whenever I get to feeling down in the dumps because - first of all, the stories she covers make me feel pretty good about my life. Like that story recently about the teenager who taught his two toddler age nephews to smoke pot. Hey - at least my life isn't that bad! My five year old doesn't smoke weed. Plus Nancy Grace is so unintentionally funny. Hearing her say "big fat doobie" or "great big old blunt" - well that just has to make me smile.

Ok enough of the weird. My hands have been busy little knitters these past couple of weeks. I've completely finished Bettna (seamed and wearable and everything), one and a half beehive hats, six (yeah six!) Calorimetries (is that the plural?) and one Branching Out Scarf.

I do plan on having pictures - someday! When it's sunny. So look for them around June or so. ;)

Scout says she wants to see everyones tattoos. Again, I'm lazy about the pictures thing but I've got bunches of tattoos so I suppose I should get my hubby to take some photos. That should give me blog material for quite awhile. :)

And in other news - I've got three new baby Gouldians out of the nest. Looks like two yellows and a green or blue. Can't tell for sure yet. And my Society Finches hatched - FOURTEEN babies. I simply can't believe it. I knew they had fourteen eggs in there but I just thought there was no way they would all hatch. At least some had to be duds and probably some of them wouldn't get brooded properly with that many in there. I try not to bother the birds too much when they are sitting on eggs so I just went ahead and left all the eggs in there. And every single one hatched. I checked on the babies a few days ago and they were all doing just fine. I was really worried that the parents would have trouble feeding that many babies - but I've got four adults and one juvenile and they must all be pitching in to do the feedings. And then at night time they all pile into the nest to sleep. That's 19 finches in one nest. They like to sleep all with their heads sticking out the door. It's a pretty strange sight!

So - um...anybody want to buy some Society Finches?? I think I have a few to spare. :)