Lately, Harley has been mostly subsisting on peas (lots of peas), pomegranate arils, apple, toast, and snacks. Yeah, let's not mention all the other foods I try to get him to eat. But one thing I do is make him work for his snacks. I wrap everything in tiny squares of paper, like a Christmas cracker (without the bang, of course), and I can "hide" these in lots of places. Harley will work pretty hard for a snack.

I usually only make enough for a day or two, and am more likely — considering there are three different kinds of snacks — to make them as I need them. The only exception has been the few times I've gone out of town. But this morning, while I was waiting for the Cable Guy to show up, I made a whole butt-load of snacks.

Click for an even bigger photo (picture pops).

The paper is another item recycled from the numerous official updates that pilots have to keep with them when they go flying. I cut the thin paper into rectangles about 2 1/4" by 2 1/2". Then, for one kind of snack, I cut nuts into tiny pieces, wrap a rectangle of paper around each piece, and twist the ends around it. Harley's favorites are almonds (cut into 2-3 pieces, depending on the size), cashews (usually 6 pieces) and pistachios (2 pieces). I also wrap up bits of walnut, but Harley doesn't really like them. (Sometimes I'll simply "hide" a pistachio-in-the shell somewhere, too.)

While waiting for the Cable Guy, I cut up a bunch of nuts and wrapped them into 75 cracker snacks.

For the other two kinds of snacks, I wrap the paper around a Bic Round Stic pen, twist the end, fill partway with snacks, and twist the other end closed.

While waiting for the Cable Guy, I made 5 crackers with Harrison's Adult Fine pellets (sometimes Harley will eat these), 4 crackers with a dry seed mix similar to TOP All-In-One seed mix but with safflower seeds added (Harley mostly eats the safflower seeds), and 60 empty tubes, just waiting to be filled with snacky goodness.

While waiting for the Cable Guy, I made and hid about another 4 additional snacks, took some pictures of snacks, counted all the snacks, vacuumed up some snack debris in the living room, and thawed out some peas and pomegranate arils. You know, for Harley's lunch.

Edited to add Klara's comments.

The other day Klara left me a message, asking for advice on what she can do to keep her very territorial Pacific Parrotlet from being such a terror. Here's part of what she said:

I myself have a three year old male Pacific Parrotlet and he is SO, SO territorial! It's not just a seasonal thing, either, it's year round. He gets 12 hours of sleep every night, but that doesn't seem to help change his behavior.

Was Peanut ever cage territorial? I tried giving my bird one whole room at one point, thinking maybe he was just territorial over small spaces, but then he got territorial over the WHOLE room... just wondering if you have any tips for me and whether there's a way I can get around this. It's not fun to hang around him when he's being all bitey and nippy. And when he bites, he will hang on and not let go... when he finally does, he will grab another part of my hand or toes or whatever, repeat.

In fact, I've gotten too scared of him lately and haven't been handling him much - I just let him out to do his own thing, never really getting into contact with him.

I couldn't really help her, since Peanut was always very gentle. Neither Bruce nor I can even remember more than a handful of times he tried to bite us (once was when I was trying to type on his keyboard when he was using the computer — really, what was I thinking!?!).

But from what I've heard and read about other parrotlets, Peanut's behavior was atypical. Most of these tiny Masters of the Universe are feisty and more than capable of drawing blood. Don't laugh, many owners of big parrots dread bites from small birds — they're tiny but pernicious.

So if any of you readers have first-hand experience in handling tiny territorial tyrants (suggestions, good web sites, etc.), can you please leave a comment for Klara? Thanks!

Harley hasn't been playing much with foot toys lately. I think his habits have changed since we've moved to the new place. He has more space here, more places to be, more windows to look out of, more scenery changes. I'm not sure why that translates into fewer toys-held-in-feet-and-destroyed, but that seems to be the case. Instead, he likes to stand on things and destroy them:

This is a duffel bag with one of those 4" x 6" kraft boxes in it, cut to resemble a "kleenex" box. The box is occasionally chewed, and it conveniently holds up the side of the duffel bag so Harley can get inside it, and stand on and chew up the real attraction: an Airport/Facility Directory (pop up a photo here, or read more about the book and why we let Harley chew them up). The bag does a pretty good job of containing all the book spit balls — remember this disaster? (Picture pops.) We simply empty the duffel out when Harley can't fit inside anymore.

I'm sure part of the attraction in this case is the nest-like enclosure of the duffel bag, and letting him chew in here all the time could elicit aggressive behaviors. But we haven't noticed any really bad behavior. Just the usual poops on the rug.

Harley also loves luggage, and "helps" Bruce pack every week. I'll get pictures of that soon. But for now, here's a photo of Harley going hunting in Bruce's computer bag:

He was lucky: he found a power bar! And ate it! Way too much sugar for a bird, but we let him have a few bites as a reward for all the hard work.

Harley said "Look at that" this morning, apropos of nothing that I could tell. Of course, I wasn't watching him at the time, nor was I looking at what he might have been watching. He gets talkative sometimes, often in the morning after breakfast, and we play a "game" where he says something, or more likely makes a sound, and I try to repeat it. I don't always understand his words, and I can't whistle, so usually he wins this game. But it's fun to play.

The car event was from another day. Harley is fascinated by three closed doors near his cage: the bathroom, the closet, and the garage. I usually don't take him in the garage since the smell of gas is pretty strong, but sometimes you have to do new things, so here he is. We didn't actually drive him anywhere, although we could easily go for a loop around our quiet cul-de-sac. The first time I met Haley we all went for a car ride on a quiet, private road, and he really liked it. Considering how much time he spends sitting like a lump on a perch, it's pretty funny how much Harley likes to do new things.

So have you been paying any attention to what has been called — with no amount of exaggeration (really, none) — the country's worst financial disaster since the Great Depression?

Yeah. We haven't. Here's Harley chewing up a box:

Because sometimes, in the face of potential disaster, it's important to — you know — ignore reality. And so far, it seems that the Powers That Be (such as they are) have averted the dreadful repercussions that the country experienced several decades ago. Keep your fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, here is Harley at his nesty best:

The Joy of the Box. Drink it in. Relax.

I'm going away for a couple of days, so I thought I'd leave everyone with this sweet photo of Harley getting scritches. Aaaaaaaaah!

Unrelated to scritches, I learned a surprising thing tonight: Harley loves pomegranate even more than a bit of parmesan cheese. Being the owner of the plate from which Harley steals macaroni and cheese (almost) every Sunday night, I can hardly believe it! But there he was, eating two pomegranate arils, pinning the whole time, before even looking at the sliver of cheese I gave him. Well, I guess stranger things have happened....

Boxes are still some of Harley's favorite toys, and in many ways, his chewing habits still dictate what we eat and buy. Not so much because he's chewed through food boxes in the cupboard, but because sometimes he goes through several boxes in a day. Being something of a whole grains, low-impact kind of household, it can be a little hard to keep up. The four-inch square kraft boxes I get to make nest boxes for the Finsters (picture pops) are occasionally interesting, as are the tiny kraft boxes (picture pops) I pick up at crafty stores sometimes. I also got a case of 4" x 6" kraft boxes, which are the preferred size for basic box chewing, and are also useful for foraging toys — I'll have to get a picture the next time I make one of those. But the truth is, the kraft paper is a little thicker than Harley likes for regular, every-day chewing. So we make sacrifices.

We've started eating more breakfast cereal, and less toast, more crackers and less bread, more elbow noodles and less angel hair pasta, and I'm much less likely to use toilet paper to blow my nose. I used keep my eyes out for products with less packaging, but now I choose bird-friendly cardboard, if it's available.

Of course, as a girl, I have a few extra options. Like this:

and this:

Hey, whatever works.

We got this backpack for Harley late last Fall. (I'm pretty sure it's the "medium" one of these, but I don't remember where we got it.) It was really too cold to take Harley outside in it, but we got him accustomed to the space by hiding snacks inside, and encouraging him to climb around on it and in it. Once it got warm out, we put him inside while we were gardening, or otherwise puttering around outside the building. This condominium complex is pretty quiet, but there are still a couple of dogs and kids around, so the backpack gave him more privacy than his outside cage (picture pops).

It's only been pretty recently that we started taking him for walks in it. Because, you know, we're lazy slugs. By coincidence, we ran into a friend while we were on our second outing — she thought it was the cutest thing she'd ever seen! But the backpack isn't quite perfect. First, the last time we took him out he seemed to get a little overheated, so that's something we'll have to watch out for on a hot day.

The biggest problem, though, is that the lowest perch attachment is slightly high for dainty Harley, and the perch that came with it is a little too big in diameter. So if he falls off, he can't climb up again. It's easy enough to make new, thinner perches, but so far Harley has insisted on perching awkwardly on the dishes instead — I'm guessing because they're higher than the perch, and he just feels safer being higher up.

Next time I might just remove the dishes, since we're not going out long enough for him to need snacks or beverages. I'm also thinking of making some sort of ladder, or platform, instead of a perch, so he'll be able to hang on more easily. It is a moving backpack, after all.

The outside of our condominium complex is being painted. Yesterday they taped all the trim around our building, and today they did some of (hopefully most of) the spray-painting. Next will be the trim work. The crew is working pretty quickly, but it's a big job, so it's a little hard to judge how long it will all take.

Harley's breakfast was interrupted by all the commotion this morning, and late this afternoon his Window Time was interrupted by a Man! Walking! In! Front! Of! His! Window! With! A! Ladder!

Harley was both terrified and utterly fascinated by all of this activity. Needless to say, we've had to be pretty careful with all the hustle and bustle. We've closed the window blind behind the Finsterium, and tried to bring Harley up to the bedroom only when we think there aren't men on the roof. We got that wrong this afternoon.

The new paint looks just about the same as the old paint. But I'm sure it's much better now.

Harley likes corn pretty well. A few thawed-out frozen kernels usually get added to the birds' food mix, and now that it's grilling season, we have chunks of corn-on-the-cob available most weekends. Despite its availability — or perhaps because of it — Harley doesn't eat it at every opportunity. Unless, that is, he has convinced his favorite lackey to feed it to him on a fork:

Cinnamon and Ginger don't seem to like corn as much as the other Finsters did, either. When they do eat it, their method is closest to the Society Finches'. This doesn't worry me, since — with its high sugar content — it isn't the most nutritious of vegetables. What does concern me, however, is that they don't eat millet spray. What's up with that? Are they not birds?!?

Be sure to read part one of How To Eat Corn.

Also, be sure to pop up this photo from National Geographic, which shows how rabbits prefer to eat corn. Well, obviously.

(Note that these photos of Harley were taken on my new camera phone. Yes, it's an iPhone. Yes, you can be jealous of me. But the pictures aren't the best in the world. Still. Harley eating corn: you just can't go wrong.)