Parrot Hut

Dream world

Parrot Hut — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:03:53 +0000

I have had a series of very vivid dreams, and the more this happens, the more difficult it is to explain what I am seeing. One of the issues with these dreams is that when I am injured in the dream, I have the same pain in real life. In the dream this morning, my right arm was broken, and I woke up with massive pain in the same arm. Granted, I can see how things like that may be incorporated into my dreams. But I normally don’t experience that much pain in that joint.

There was one dream I had several months ago that still baffles me. I was shot in my left wrist, and when I woke up, there was a circular spot in the same place, and it was very painful. My wife even witnessed the spot, so I know I wasn’t imagining it. While I can see where the pain might figure into the dream, how does something that happens in the dream create something in the real world? The dream this morning was so vivid, even more so than my usual dreams. This dream broke into another dream I was having, which was odd. During the short time I was in the second dream, it was more real than my actual life at that time. I understood everything, and that my life was just a distraction to keep my mind busy, so I wouldn’t think about escaping. It has left me with a strange feeling, and I don’t know what to think about it at all.

Have any of you had a similar experience? Have you seen something physical form out of your dreams?

Taking On New Opportunities

Parrot Hut — Sun, 16 May 2010 03:53:04 +0000

I am proud to announce that I have accepted an offer to be a parrot expert on examiner.com. You can read more about this here. This is a great opportunity and I am thrilled to be able to help inform more viewers on the Internet on issues related to my passion for birds of all types. I hope this will help increase the audience for the upcoming podcast, which is my main project right now. But having the chance to write more often is always a good thing. I love writing, and hope to build up my skills in this area, so one day, I can finally get one of the books I have planned on the market. I have over 60 ideas for books that have developed over time, some of which, I believe are going to make awesome stories.

So if you are a bird lover, then check back here often, and I will make sure to link to my section of the site. I hope to have it up and running in the next week or so. Until then, I hope you continue to enjoy these blog posts. Actually, I hope you continue to enjoy these posts, and just add that to the list of things to read every week.

What To Do When You Find A Bomb In The Woods

Parrot Hut — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:48:29 +0000

If you find a bomb in the woods, what would you do with it? Well, an elderly man here in Gulf Breeze decided to put it in back of his pick-up truck and drive it to the local sheriff’s station, which happens to be next door to me. The blocked off the area for two hours while waiting for the explosives ordinance team from Hurlburt AFB to come check it out. All the while, they let cars drive right passed the truck, just six feet from the road, which as far as they knew at the time, could blow up at any minute. Fortunately, it turned out to be a dummy round, which is used for training purposes. How it ended up in the woods near a subdivision is a mystery, but at least we were safe. It made for something interesting to watch, and thanks to a call from me, the local ABC affiliate, WEAR-TV, got the most exciting story of the day for our area. But if you ever find a bomb in the woods, trust me, call the police and let them take care of it. This guy is SO lucky it wasn’t a live round, otherwise he could have been killed, and the potential danger he put us all in was unacceptable.

Finally, An End In Sight

Parrot Hut — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:55:59 +0000

We have been involved in a legal dispute with a former employer of mine for over a year now, and finally this month, we should hopefully see it brought to an end. This has put a major amount of stress on my life, and while I am a little nervous to go in front of a judge, I am glad to see this end. We have a good case, and I think we stand a strong chance to prevail, but you never know going into court what the outcome will be. Due to this dispute, we have been harassed by individuals online, and even seen friends that have supported us attacked. It has dragged on for over a year, and I am so relieved to see it finally coming to a close. If you are the praying type, please send up a few for us, as we need all the help we can get. Light a few candles, do whatever you think works in these cases, and hopefully we will see a positive outcome on Tuesday. I will post the results here, and probably everywhere else on the Internet, if all goes well. Actually, I will post it either way, but I will just be annoyed further if the judge actually buys into their case. If you could see it, you would know what I mean. I would give you an example, but I don’t want to spoil the case. But I will tell you all about it soon. Thanks for any positive thoughts and prayers.

News from Hurricane Ike

Parrot Hut — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:41:09 +0000

We have many items still left in storage in the Houston area, since we moved from there several years ago, and haven’t had the time to go back and move them here with us. So we were naturally concerned when the news came of the landfall of hurricane Ike, and that the area we left our things received huge damage. We spent the last couple of days trying to get information, and it has been very frustrating to say the least. But we finally got the report today that our units are undamaged, and while it would be good to go check them, it sounds like all is still well there, for us at least. Our hearts go out to the thousands of people that have lost everything as a result of Ike’s landfall in Houston. We sit in wait for the next big hurricane, and hope to once again be spared from the destructive wrath of the storm.

Saying Goodbye To Conner

Parrot Hut — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:07:02 +0000

Conner was a beautiful Nanday Conure that came to live with us a few months ago. He had all sorts of funny little quirks, like most of our birds, that made him extra special. He was in love with a Cockatiel that was half his size, but that didn’t matter to Conner. He had to see his friend every day, and would rush to the side of the cage that he shared with his friend. Conner and I had a special bond that developed over time. We started out with me just talking to him and in time he trusted me enough to allow me to touch him. He was never a shoulder bird though, but I knew that he knew I cared about him.

Today when I uncovered everyone, I immediately could tell there was something not right with Conner. He didn’t come up and talk like he always did, and didn’t even go to see his friend for his morning chatter. He was just trying to sleep, and that isn’t like any of our birds. I called my wife to come home so we could take him to the vet, and I took Conner out of his cage, something he never would allow if he were alright, and I carried him into the living room and stroked his feathers. He clung to me as best he could, and I could tell that this helped him a little. I prayed for him and continued to do all I could to show him how much he was loved.

At 5:45pm CST today, Conner passed away in my hands. He just raised his head and looked at me one last time as if to say goodbye, and then he died. I cried for a while, continuing to stroke his lifeless body. You always hope that it isn’t true and somehow they will spring back to life, or at least, I do. But it was not to be for Conner. I wrapped him in tissue, made a coffin from a box, and placed him inside after giving him one last kiss on the beak. I said goodbye and closed and sealed the lid. My wife got home a few minutes later and we buried him outside, in a place I can visit and remember him and the light he brought into our lives. We will miss Conner so very much, but he now flies with a massive flock of birds I have loved over the years, as well as a few other friends of mine, from dogs to a horse. I know they are all up there somewhere, waiting for me to join them all once again. Some people expect loved ones long passed to meet them when they die. I expect an ark, filled with all sorts of animals that have touched my life over the years.

For people who don’t know the joy of sharing your lives with a bird, there is no other experience that can compare to it. They give us so much love and ask for little in return. If you are blessed with one of these creatures, care for it the way you would want to be cared for in their position. Give them all you can, sacrifice for them, and your life will be blessed with love like no other. Elisha, my Umbrella Cockatoo, saw me caring for Conner, and then watched as I placed his body into the box. She knew I was upset, and instead of wanting to play or scream, which is her normal pattern, she simply stroked my face with her claw. This is her way of showing she cares and wants me to feel better. The sweetness of these birds knows no limits, and I am truly blessed to have the flock I now have. They give me so much, and I can’t imagine life without them here.

The Flock Is Growing

Parrot Hut — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:55:16 +0000

Our flock at home continues to grow day by day. A couple of months ago, I had my first successful pair of Budgies that I hand raised, after eight that died before their first week in life. It was so depressing to fight so hard to bring these beautiful, sweet creatures back to health, only to see one after another die due to weakness from lack of parental care when they hatched. But with a lot of prayer and hard work, the last two, Thumper, named because he could only eat a little bit of food from my thumbnail, and Modo, who was always hunched over, made it through the critical first week successfully. They are continuing to grow each day, and are now several months old and doing great. They have a place of honor on my desk, and seem to enjoy flicking water at me from time to time. They are a joy to be around, and I love spending time with them, as I do all our flock. But I can’t help seeing them as special, since they are literally an answer to my prayers.

We just finished hand raising four baby Cockatiels, and there are three more getting ready to take their place soon. I don;t know what we are going to do with all these Cockatiels, since we aren’t really good at selling them. I guess we need to advertise, but it is so hard to let them go. We now have around 35 Cockatiels in the house in total, 15 more than we had the last time I posted here. Some are rescues, but most are offspring of one breeding pair. We do need to scale the flock back a bit, so I guess these new babies will be finding a good, new home soon. We will see.

We have another Cockatiel pair currently sitting on eggs, but we aren’t sure they are viable or not. I am not sure this pair knows what they are doing quite yet, but we will see if anything hatches in the coming weeks. I would like to pair off some of our larger birds, but will have to wait on that until we move into a larger house. We hope to do that later this year.

News From The Flock

Parrot Hut — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:34:26 +0000

This is my first post to my new blog on WordPress. My name is Ed and I live on the Gulf coast of Florida. I live with my wife and our flock of birds, which currently consists of 37 different types of parrots, from Budgies to Cockatoos. We have:

1 Umbrella Cockatoo
1 Goffin’s Cockatoo
1 White-bellied Caique
1 White-capped Pionus
1 Panama Amazon
20 Cockatiels (plus 5 eggs)
12 Budgies

We have one pair of Cockatiels that have been adding to the flock for a while now, so the number continues to rise from month to month. We are in the process of opening our own bird shop, and are a few steps away from opening the online portion of the store. We plan to run that for a while and eventually fund opening a store locally. Our store will be run differently from the average store, and the birds will not be in the standard cages that you see in the run of the mill bird shop. I believe that we will create a format that will hopefully encourage other stores to follow. Too many shops don’t take the well-being of the birds in mind and put them in enclosures that are borderline cruel to the birds. We have a store that isn’t far from our home that specializes in birds, and while the owner claims to know birds, the store doesn’t care for them in a way that they should be given. She even claimed one of her Macaws was “allergic to birds” when in reality she had squeezed his head so hard will hand feeding him as a baby that a seed mixed in the food was lodged in his sinus cavity. She left him untreated for almost a year until he was sold to a good friend of ours and they took him to the same vet the owner used. The vet told her about the seed, and that the owner knew about it and refused to have it flushed out. This bird suffered for almost a year, until our friend paid to have him treated and now he lives a full and healthy life, a life he would have never had were it up to the shop owner. She is one of those people that should never be in this business, and it is unfortunate that people that patronize her shop don’t know the truth about how she really does things.

As for this blog, it will be dedicated to documenting our journey toward opening our shop, with all the ups and downs that will come down the road. We are especially excited about opening the local shop, and have a clear picture of what it will be. It will be unlike any other store, and will be in a class of it’s own. We hope to build our own building and the plan may grow even more as we get closer to opening day. There is so much we can do with it, and we hope to make as much out of it as possible. We will see what it will be in the end in due time.