Pet Sitting

Well, after our bird watching weekend, we felt ready to take in a bird for a pet. Some friends of ours have an Eclectus Parrot and they were going out of town for a few days and they needed a pet-sitter. As Tim was going to be in Los Angeles all week, Elliott and I thought how fun it would be to have a little friend to liven up our school holiday week.

Our friends came towing a trialer with an enormous cage. It took several trips to bring in all the accoutrements: toys, food, seeds. As we were deciding where to put the cage, the woman comments "You should be sure to wipe off the wall if you see anything on it. Elmo tends to clean his beak and he flings a bit of food now and then." Then she mutters quietly under her breath, "....in a 2 metre radius." Yikes! 2 metre radius!

In the morning, the bird receives Passion fruit, grapes, strawberries, kiwi, and baby corn, snow pea pods and some exotic fruit I've never seen before. In the evening, it's more of the same, but add a bit of sweet corn and some peas. Imagine that food being flung in 2 metre radius. Quickly, Elliott and I moved the sofa to the corner of the room. Elliott then decided his comics wouldn't be safe and we had to move the coffee table over too. So we were left with a giant bird cage in the center of the living room - surrounded by 2 metres of newspapers in each direction. The rest of the furniture crowded to one side.

The mess and food flinging was one thing - the "chirping" quite another. At 5 am, the bird started talking to keep the neighborhood birds company. At times, the little chirp was cute. He can even say hello ever so sweetly. Othertimes, it was like a shriek that pierces the ear drum.

After 3 days and 2 nights, our friends returned to pick up Elmo. If they were surprized how neurotic I was to move the sofa, they were nice enough not to comment. There was a slight moment of panic as we tried to transfer him to his travel cage - he flew off in the house and smashed himself into a window. Luckily, he was not harmed. We loaded the car all up and waved good bye to Elmo with a big sigh of relief. But after a little while, Elliott and I looked at each other and said it seemed too quiet with him gone.