S/he's Still Here

We put a plate of seeds out on the porch railing and such a mess was made with seeds all over that OilMan made a trip to the bird store for a bird box. It contains the seeds better and s/he looks awfully cute in there. This picture was taken by my neighbor Ann, one of our guests, as we sat out on the porch. 

This little bird is quite comfortable with people and even a couple of dogs (one of them a german shorthaired pointer) but was having a bit of trouble fending off a persistent scrub jay earlier in the day. Perhaps s/he knew the scrub jay wouldn't risk it with all those people and dogs sitting around....

There's only so much we can do, since I really don't want to resort to a cage in the house, but s/he does brighten our day and make us smile when s/he appears. We may have to rethink what we do when the weather gets colder.  Although we read up on how to 'sex' a parakeet, this one is apparently immature because its cere (the area above the beak) is neither blue (male) nor scaly brown,  (female). One of our guests insisted that s/he be given a name and suggested Sidney as being appropriately unisex. We'll probably stick with 'Blue Budgie'

We paid a visit to Fabworks, the metal fabricators who made our front step railings in search of something to replace the ugly bench we tore out last week. They are quite a delightful lot and very helpful. Metal railings and frames for gates are what I used to call 'bombproof' in my climbing days. They never sag or refuse to latch but they are also very expensive . Gabe took us into the shop where, appropriately enough some kind of heavy metal music was emanating at top volume, and a couple of guys were working on an extremely elaborate two story high window wall. A look behind the scene goes a long way toward explaining why, according to a sign on the wall, labor costs begin at $110 per hour.

If I won the lottery I would have them redesign the roof and railings on our porch as well as new gates and railings by the driveway. But then of course, we would have to redo the whole porch...I confess that I do enjoy redesigning things, but it can turn into a very expensive hobby in a trice.

Maybe I should take up welding...