Welcome!

I love animals (almost all of them) but have allergies to dogs and cats. Therefore, I keep fish and birds. I've had both over the years, and loved both. Most recently a move mandated a shut-down of my 175-gallon (very sad) so at present, we have only a Red Seas Max nano reef tank running. In the bird department, we've had parakeets and cockatiels over the years, but the recent introduction of a rescued cockatiel (concurrent with the advent of the last year of an all-encompassing four-year writing project) has turned my thoughts to parrots.

I am the mother of six grown children, and since our early marriage, I have wanted a parrot. Now, with my youngest a freshman in college, I feel that I have both the time and the space to mother a young bird and do it justice. Elsewhere, you can read about the discovery of my new feathered friend-to-be, a black-headed caique. As I've been researching about parrots, I find that there are many helpful websites and books (I've devoured three books in as many days on our current 4-day vacation), but the thing most lacking in all these is a definite "how to" on several key points. The same was true when I began keeping fish. If it had not been for my local fish club (WAMAS) I never would have learned enough to plumb and maintain the large, gorgeous environment that we had the pleasure to enjoy for a season.

So, besides keeping this blog for my own records and amusement, I am offering my entries as information that, by trial and error, can hopefully be useful to other novices as they start to enjoy keeping either the creatures that ride on the breeze, or those that live among the bubbles.