1. Despite the fact that the Finster cage and its lights-on-timers still aren't set up, Harley knows when 7 a.m. is, and lets us know all about it.

2. Harley can say "potato chip."

3. When small creatures say words clearly and while staring at me over a bowl of potato chips in context, I am just as weak as Bruce is.

It turns out, if you leave Harley clinging to the side of his cage at bedtime, miserable and not ready to go to bed, turn the light out, and walk up the stairs with guilt gnawing at every cell in your body, he will eventually climb around to his Sleeping Perch and stay there, sleeping, for the rest of the night. I had to do that to him last night because he just wouldn't go to bed.

My fault, entirely, for not being Bruce.

This past week, in the new place, Harley has had a hard time going to bed. The trick that's worked the best is to take him up to the bedroom with us, lie on the bed, turn out all the lights except for the TV, and have Bruce give him scritches until he's practically asleep. Then I take him downstairs, deposit him on his Sleeping Perch, run to turn out the light before he can climb off his Sleeping Perch, and go upstairs.

As the week wore on, Harley has gotten closer and closer to Bruce's head for the requisite scritches. What used to be Loves On The Bed (picture pops) have turned into Loves On Bruce's Chest — sometimes Harley will rest his beak right on Bruce's cheek.

As absolutely, amazingly cute as this is, I knew I'd be in trouble when Bruce went out of town. And I was right. It turns out the Loves part was easy last night: after a few stops and starts, Harley grudgingly climbed up onto my chest, and then stayed there, mesmerized, for scritches. But once he realized that I could give him Loves, he sure didn't need me to take him anywhere else. I took him downstairs, he climbed off his Sleeping Perch, I took him back upstairs for more Loves, I took him downstairs again, I used the stick, back and forth, and by this time it was really late and I needed to get some sleep. Without a bird on my chest.

But as it turns out, Harley will eventually climb to his Sleeping Perch if you are mean and callous enough to leave him clinging to the side of his cage, forlorn and unloved, at bedtime. Here's hoping I'm not overcome by guilt tonight.

The next time you move, be sure to hire a couple of really strong men, particularly if one of them is 6' 9". Wow! (That's 1' 3" taller than I've ever wished to be!) It makes the whole process much easier. Mind you, even a couple of strapping young men can't make up for the fact that moving is really annoying. Oh, it's not just the boxes of stuff everywhere, it's also the strangeness of the new space.

The first morning, the Finsters — who are still in the "hospital" cage pending the cleaning and rebuilding of the Finsterium — were seen sleeping inside the bath dish. Inside the bath dish! Poor, damp Finsters. You can pop up a picture of that bath dish here, but don't get your hopes up — we still only have two finches. This photo is from when Ginger and Cinnamon were among the big batch of new Finsters back in September, 2004. Usually when subjected to the cramped quarters of the hospital cage, as many finches as can fit there sleep perched on the entrance to the bath, facing in. And that's where Ginger and Cinnamon have been sleeping since that first night.

The first night, Harley was so nervous about the new place that we had to wait until he was practically asleep before he'd stay on his Sleeping Perch for the night. He still isn't convinced about bed time. And the first morning, Harley was apparently so startled at seeing new surroundings that he fell off his perch. (We can run downstairs very quickly, as it turns out.)

But everyone is starting to settle in now, at least during the day. Here are Bruce and Harley, watching TV, and drinking beer and apple juice. You'll notice I didn't take a picture of them hanging around in their underwear — but they do both have their feet up. We have a new couch for the living room (with piping that's just perfect for curious beaks), but you'll notice Harley is still in the middle of everything.

The living room and the kitchen are set up the best. Our bed is made, but that's about it for the bedroom. The basement is still full of boxes — although the network is set up. The den/bird room won't be completed until the Finsterium gets set up again, which is taking longer than we'd planned. But it's partly their own fault for pooping so much — silly me figured with less than a handful of Finsters in there since the last big cleaning, and several new nest boxes along the way, I wouldn't have to make a whole set of new ones. But I was very, very wrong. How can such tiny creatures poop so much?

Here's Harley on the breakfast bar Harley bar. Along with the counter in the bathroom, and the top of the shower door, this is one of Harley's favorite places to be so far. At first we thought the main attraction to the Harley bar is that he can drop things off of both sides — and that's pretty darn fun! He's dropped spitballs from the box everywhere, and squished carrots from several meals both into the sink and onto the chairs. I'm sure he'd love to throw some pony beads around, but I'm not sure the disposal would handle them very well.

But it turns out that the real attraction of the bar is the faucet. Who knew Harley likes shiny metal things as much as I do? Here he is being KING OF THE FAUCET. Even if he weren't so possessive of this spot that we need to resort to using a stick to get him off it, there are a few obvious reasons why this could be really, really bad.


Go ahead, list them for yourself.

As I predicted, there's still stuff left at the old place. A surprising amount, in fact. It's hard to believe we managed to stuff so much...stuff...into such a small space. Of course, it might not seem like such a mess if there weren't so many spitballs floating around. Everywhere. I can't imagine where they came from.

Can you?

My friend R read this blog for the first time the other day. While she was impressed at how handsome Harley is, she asked for more pictures of the Finsters. I explained that it's hard to take photos of the little guys, since they're scared of me and fly away when I open the door. Plus, they usually go to the right side of the cage when I open the door — and since the perch on that side takes two people to change easily, it doesn't get cleaned as often. Which you can tell in the picture I just took:

But that's okay, since we'll be cleaning the whole Finsterium soon, on account of we'll be moving soon. On Tuesday, in fact. Um, that would be tomorrow. Yikes!

To be honest, we've been moving things for the past few weeks — including Bob, who has not fared well at all, despite being in a much brighter space. Harley has even visited a couple of times, although apart from the closets, which are fascinating, he still seems a little nervous. That should change tomorrow, though, since we're having some people help us move the big stuff, including beds, couches and the birds' cages. We won't have everything transported by Tuesday, but once you've moved beds, the big TV, the birds and your underpants, it's pretty safe to say that you're living in a new place.

What with moving boxes of things across town every day, trying to keep track of where the checkbook is, getting used to stairs again, and trying not to panic over having more than one bathroom to clean, I suppose I can be forgiven for not noting the very important fact that Harley has been living with us for a year since April 20.

A YEAR!

It's a little hard to believe, frankly.

In some ways, it feels like he's been with us forever, and in other ways it feels like we're still getting to know one another. I guess the same can be said of many relationships, though.

We're looking forward to spending time with Harley in the new place, since it's much bigger than this apartment. I think he's been getting a little bored here, with so few places he can be safely without supervision. We plan to set up Harley Stations in most rooms, so he can climb around and play with toys in different spots. Bruce suspects we'll need a computer and a TV in every room, as well. He might be right.

When Harley became reluctant to spend much time on his perch on the stove after Oolong died, I started bribing him to stay there. The typical reward is a toasted pumpkin or squash seed. This doesn't always work, since — I'm sure you'll agree — a whole tub of seedy goodness is hard to resist. (Don't be fooled by the cottage cheese tub. Reuse, people reuse!)

But as time goes by, he's gotten more willing to stay on that perch. Now, despite the inherent dangers involved in having a bird on the stove, this is a good thing, since it means I can clean his cage more easily. But gone are the days of playing Bag on the stove:

Lucky for all of us, Harley still likes to play Bag on the bed:

Last night at bedtime, Harley really didn't want to go to bed. Sure, some nights he'll want five more minutes of scritches and Loves. But usually we keep him up a little later than he'd like, so he's pretty good about going to bed. Not last night. No matter what we did, or who brought him to his cage, or how many times we tried, he did NOT want to go to bed.

We're sure it's because he got so spooked by the earthquake the night/morning before.

No bed for him, he just wanted to be with us — well, Bruce, mostly. On the one hand, it was such a sweet experience, knowing he felt safer with us than alone. On the other hand, it was getting really late.

Finally, we turned the lights out, Bruce gave him scritches until he was pretty much asleep, and gently deposited him on his perch, still mostly asleep. He stayed there all night. Lucky for us, there were no more earthquakes.

We'll see how it goes tonight.

There was an earthquake this morning at 5:36 a.m. ET, centered in Southern Illinois. Harley felt it, woke up, fell off his perch, squawked and yelled, rolled out of his cage when I went running to "save" him, lurched around on the floor for a bit, and finally settled in with us when we brought him into the bedroom.

I'm not sure if I've described this before, but early morning is one of my favorite times with Harley: we live in a small apartment building so we are careful to keep him quiet when we can — or at least when we figure our neighbors want quiet. He wakes up when the Finsters' light goes on at 7 a.m., not that early, but perhaps early enough. So to keep him from calling out to us, loudly, "Hello!," we take him out of his cage, wait for him to poop his ginormous Morning Poop, and take him into the bedroom with us. Occasionally he'll try to bite my toes, so we get up for breakfast. But usually he'll sit on somebody's knee for awhile, and we all doze and listen to the news. Very sweet.

This morning, much earlier than normal, the news people informed us that there was an earthquake in Illinois, measuring at a magnitude of 5.2. I was surprised that Harley would have felt it from so far away, but comments on an internet forum I visit proved that many birds felt the quake from far away. Amazing!

Harley recovered from the shock, although he lost a couple of feathers in the mayhem. Here he is calmly having a snack, about mid-morning:

He's on his Snack Spot in this photo. The ghastly mostly pink rubbery perch broke awhile ago, so this is a new cotton perch right near his Art Project. This is his favorite place to eat snacks. He'll find a snack in his Art Project, and then climb to this Spot to eat it.

The other day, while he was chewing up a box on The Most Uncomfortable Couch In The World (see:

and:

for two examples), he found a snack hiding inside. Bonus! So he backed out of the box carrying the snack in his beak, and tried to climb up the side of his cage to his Snack Spot to eat it. That was pretty tough to do, with a nut in his beak. So I lifted him up to his Spot, and all was well.

This couch has a long and uninteresting history. Despite the fact that it's become the most uncomfortable couch in the world, it still calls out to people and birds alike: "Come and sit on me!" Harley likes to chew its edges, and drop snack squeezins on it from his Art Project. He also likes to get scritches — well, anywhere, so why not on the Eating Couch? Here he is getting some scritches from me:

And here he is, sitting on the Eating Corner (you'll notice the crumbs), getting stick scritches from Bruce:

Maybe we should start calling it the Scritch Couch.

Harley is a smart bird, and knows that when we pull out the crackers, there's often some cheese to go with them. He's good at finding the tiniest bits of cheesy goodness, even when there isn't actually any on the plate yet.

The same goes for salad: Harley knows we often put grated parmesan in our salad, so he'll go running over to the bowl to try to find some. Here he's flicked out some of the salad bits to find some cheese.

It also looks like Harley is looking for cheese in the picture below. Why else would he pick through a pile of vegetables, right? But in fact, he's drinking the freshly cut carrots. He likes thawed, frozen carrots better, since they're softer, and he can squish them in his beak and drink the juice. But freshly cut carrots are pretty interesting while they're still wet.

This freshly-rinsed broccolini is still quite wet, and great for drinking. In fact, all forms of broccoli make a good toy: first, you drink it, and then you tear it into little pieces to try to find more water. The bigger the piece of vegetable, the more fun it is!


Kale is also a good vegetable for drinking. Harley chews up the ribs and drinks them. When the leaves are wet, they hold a lot of good drinking water. Plus, you never know when the curly ends might be hiding a tiny piece of tasty cheese.

On those days that Harley can't stay still for more than two minutes at a stretch (which would be most days) I occasionally let him explore what is currently a mostly-empty drawer in the Peanut Memorial Shelving Unit. If it were completely empty, it might not be such an interesting place, but as it is, and particularly with the addition of a toy or two inside he can just reach, this drawer can keep him occupied for a good ten to twelve minutes. Not bad for a regular old piece of furniture!

The good thing about Enrichment Unit #3 is that Harley can't get anywhere from it, and get into trouble. He can't even climb inside, since it's too deep.

This means I can put Harley there for a few minutes while I'm trying to clean his house, or talk on the phone, or juggle sharp knives. As it turns out, Harley's Awesome Beak Of Biting can dent the material a bit. But the dents aren't big, and I figure it's a small price to pay for a few minutes of peace.