While Harley remains enamored of Lunch On A Skewer, and totally in love with breakfast, dinner has become less and less interesting to him. We give him a plate, but usually he pretty much ignores it and nags us until Bruce caves in and brings him over to the table, where he turns into Helen Keller before Anne Sullivan taught her some manners. Cheese, corn, and the occasional green bean get eaten, and everything else gets tossed out of his way. Bruce thinks this is cute, and important flock behavior. Me: not so much. So the moment something gets tossed to the floor I bring him over to his tree, and give him dessert. And yeah, that's another story, so we'll just leave it at that.

At any rate, in the midst of this waning interest in dinner, these past few days the humans in the house haven't exactly been eating dinner, and certainly not at our usual schedule. So we put a plate of food in front of Harley, he almost immediately ignores it (perhaps because we're not nearby eating ourselves), and starts demanding dessert.

Since Lunch On A Skewer has been going over so well — I should say, Harley loves Lunch On A Skewer, he goes crazy for Lunch On A Skewer, he nags for Lunch On A Skewer — tonight I decided to scoop his untouched dinner into a coffee filter and put it on a skewer.

Success! He ate a cherry tomato and then he emptied the filter of all the food. You know, dropping most of it on the floor. But still. And he even waited awhile before he started nagging me for dessert. Siiiiiiiigh. Not sure what the future will bring, it'll depend a bit on Bruce and my eating schedule, I suppose. And Harley's weight is starting to creep up, so we'll have to figure out how to keep that in check. But so far, I'll call it a success.

This photo is yesterday's lunch:

Our cherry tomato plant has produced two fruits so far. Harley has now eaten destroyed both of them.

Breakfast is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's hungriest. Dinner is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's likeliest to get cheese, or some other naughty bit of food. And lunch is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's most likely to play with his food. In some ways, lunch should be his least important meal of the day, since many bird people don't think these creatures really need three full meals a day. But Bruce and I are working from home, and if we're eating, Harley has to eat too. However, our lunch schedule is rarely as regular as breakfast and dinner, so rather than give Harley a plate of peas, lunch has grown into Fun With A Skewer.

I give him a combination of lightly sprouted grains and seeds, cooked beans, and minced vegetables, usually placed in a coffee filter, with various chunks of vegetables stung onto a skewer. The game is definitely "I MUST REMOVE ALL THE LITTLE BITS FROM INSIDE THE BROWN PAPER," and occasionally "LET ME DRINK THESE VEGETABLE CHUNKS WHILE I'M HERE." But he's really grown to love this game. He might not actually be eating much more of the healthy stuff during lunch than breakfast or dinner, but he spends more time with the good food. So that's a plus.

Sometimes, it's the usual mash in a special dish — although if memory serves me correctly, there was probably something covering this paper dish. A rice cake? A lettuce leaf?


Vegetables that Harley usually ignores get chomped on the skewer.


This half of a sweet pepper got pretty well torn up, seeds and all.


Look, even hot peppers can be fun!


Lately I've been putting the mash mix into two coffee filters, to give Harley more work, and then adding a chunk or two of vegetable. Here's another shot of Harley the day we got the new air conditioner, with the two coffee filters.


But sometimes I'll roll a spoon of the mash up in a big lettuce leaf, or — in this case — a leaf of chard.


Come to think of it, now that Fun With A Skewer has become a daily event, I should probably weigh Harley. (Something I should do a bit more regularly than I already do.) Hopefully, he hasn't gained much weight.

Oh, and really — Snacks is Harley's most important meal of the day. Really, what was I thinking?

So Tuesday was a day full of excitement. Two Wee Men came and spent most of the day doing Important Things inside and outside. Most of it outside.

For the most part, Harley was unimpressed by the Wee Men and their activity, maybe because he'd seen it all when the first Wee Man tested things out? Instead, he took full advantage of all the commotion to get extra Snacks of Placating, and almost unlimited attention from the humans in the house (that weren't Wee Men). The one chunk of time he was in his cage he took a bath, which — if you've been reading this blog for awhile — you will know hardly ever happens. Clearly, I'm going to have to invite the Wee Men over more often!

Even The Biggest Cardboard Box In The World didn't excite him. He just calmly ate his lunch, and then turned into Fussy McFussypants.


His favorite perch in our bedroom window didn't interest him, the guest room didn't interest him, even the Closet of Magical Things didn't interest him — he was tired of it by the time I brought the camera upstairs.

(Hm. Extra points if you can spot the underpants!)

The closet was probably boring because we put him there on his portable perch, instead of letting him explore things in the drawers like we did last time. You know, things like chewy, chewy shirts.


So he explored the bed for awhile, and chewed up our comforter instead.


(Apologies for these last two photos: apparently I'm incapable of taking decent pictures of textiles. That shirt is tan, and the blanket is a light green. Yes, really. Not even Photoshop could get the colors close to reality.)

Once we rescued the comforter, Harley deigned to sit with Bruce for a few minutes.


But, once he realized he couldn't reach any good drugs, he started fussing again.


Fussy, Fussy, Fussy McFussypants. I'm pretty sure he gained a few grams, with all the Snacks of Placating we ended up giving him. Finally, though, he settled in on his perch in the bedroom, content to watch the Wee Men's truck. Because you never know what a truck might do if it's left unwatched. After all.


The air conditioner is installed and the Wee Men tested it out, but wouldn't you know — the weather has been in the low to mid 70s since Tuesday so we haven't actually needed it on. Not that I'm complaining, we don't get weather like this in Michigan very often!