An Abbynormal Thought..."This looks like Oregon"

I was in the passenger seat as we were driving back from town the other day.  As I was enjoying the scenery a thought popped into my head. This looks like Oregon.  Really?!?!, that thought again!

I have been back living in Oregon going on 7 years now, ever since I became a mail-order bride, aka product of 2 weeks on an online Christian dating site.

The last time I lived in Oregon I was 6 years old living on a small farm with my family in the Pleasant Hill area. I loved it. I spent much of my time hunting frogs in the slough between our place and my cousins place.

This internet photo could have been me.

I also like playing with my pet hen and gathering the chicken eggs or eating strawberries out of our garden and climbing our fruit trees.  But, one of my most favorite things was hanging out at my grandma and grandpa's farm....across the street. She had lots of flower beds, a very large garden, fruit trees, bird houses, chickens, ducks.....and a two story house with wooden stairs (lots of fun to play on)! I would help my grandma weed her flowers, but really I was "kinda" weeding, but mostly hunting for garter snakes.  It was the prefect place to grow up.


But then the summer of my 7th birthday my father took a job in Las Vegas and that is how we ended up in this desert city.  So there we were driving across the desert, without air conditioning in our car in the summer heat. It was so hot our cat was panting! It was so hot that is took more then 2 weeks before the moving company found someone who would drive our furniture and stuff across the desert!
I hated it in the dry lack of much green desert. Plus there were no frogs around and the snakes  were poisnous!
So here started my 40 years in the desert.

Every home that we lived in became a mini Oregon. With lots of flowers and some trees planted. As I grew up and had my own homes this flower-tree planting continued. But then I added ponds.

The first house we bought I added a small pond, which was more like an in ground bird bath within the ever growing flower beds. We also planted lots of trees. Each year we would buy a live Christmas tree to then plant in the yard.

The second home we bought was on a half acre. It already had good size pine trees along two whole sides. (My sister and her husband planted them all, since it had been their place before we bought it from them). I had a cement bird bath about 2' by 2'. Then someone gave my a turtle! Oh....that little bird bath was  not big enough for him. So I dug a pond. It ended up being  around 10-12' long, shallow at one end with a waterfall and then about 2 1/2 feet deep at the other end. In the area around the pond I planted lots of flowers. AND....I found a pond store in town that sold tadpoles! Bullfrog tadpoles! I was so excited to finally have frogs again. At night I would sit out by the pond and watch all the pond life interact. It almost felt like I was in Oregon.

The front yard

The third and last home I bought in Las Vegas had one large tree in the front yard. That was it. The back yard was all grass. So I started planting trees. Around a dozen along the fence line in the backyard. Meanwhile I paid my son to remove the grass from the front yard and I beefed up the sprinkler system and turned the whole yard into one big flower garden!


Then I stared work on back yard again and I had a large 6 sided, 127 square foot bird avairy built in the center of the yard. I had decided a few years back that if I owned birds that they must have a flight cage. There were doves, cockatiels, parakeets and button quail within the aviary. Their sounds were awesome!

   

After the aviary I put in another pond with a waterfall. It was stocked with koi, goldfish, turtles and of course bullfrog tadpoles!

A one year old bull frog

 The place was starting to look like Oregon. Well, kinda.

To add to my weirdness, while on vacation in Northern California I found some moss on a piece of bark. I brought it home and put it in a terrarium. I kept it alive for about a year. Oh how I loved moss, a rareity in the Nevada desert.

Well, time keeps on going. All my kids had grown up and moved out. My job had ended and it was time to sell and move. I figuered I would go visit all the kids spred out in many different states and my mother in Arizona and also my grandma in Oregon. I was thinking that somewhere in my travels I would find a new home.

I never dreamed I would end up back in Oregon. But I did.
I met Daniel on a Christian dating site. 

Acually, he found me, and I was only on for two weeks! He lived in Oregon. I really wasn't trying to get back to Oregon anymore. I had learned to love the desert and all its wonderfull wildlife and rocks. I was leaning towards moving to Arizona.

So after Daniel and I married we bought a farm in the corner of NW Oregon.

The huge maple trees here are covered in moss. The ground is covered in moss. It is so awesome! I have no need for a terrarium to keep moss in. It is everywhere!

There are hundreds of frogs in the "everywhere you look pools of water" singing a chorus at night and you have to love those pretty little Oregon snakes!

There is a spring next to the house and a year round creek close by. No pond building needed. Then every spring and all through the summer the hills on and around our farm go through color changes of pink, purple, yellow, and white flowers! No flower beds to weed or tend to. It so feels like Oregon.


 So here I am driving through beautiful Oregon and still after 7 years my mind says, This looks like Oregon!  Maybe that is because it is Oregon....silly girl!

Well, um, after all this "paradise and moss on earth time" God told us to go. Time is short, He says, we need to be busy with people, not property. So we put the farm up to sell, and now WE have a buyer. We will be leaving Oregon soon, stopping along the way to visit kids and grandkids then headed to training Texas. I wonder how many times I will think, "This looks like Oregon" in Texas?

Abbynormals Pet Bird---Introducing Sparky the Starling.

When we built our chicken coop we included 3 built-in wild bird nesting boxes of different sizes with removable backs for cleaning or peeking. A couple of years ago a pair of starlings started nesting in one of these boxes, right above the chicken door, almost at eye level. They are bold birds! With each clutch there seemed to be one baby that would always fall out (maybe pushed) not sure. So I researched and I found a great web site about starlings and their care. http://www.starlingtalk.com/index.htm 

I discovered that they can make great pets and even learn to talk! They are not a protected bird, meaning people can destroy nests and even shoot them, whenever they want. Soooo, I decided that I would raise up a starling as a pet and thus I set forth learning and getting ready for my new baby. Baby birds imprint at around 8-10days old. So I calculated hatch date by the pretty blue egg shells on the ground below the nest box and the sound of hungry baby birds. Eight days later I became a mother!

my little Pterodactyl

I named my little dinosaur looking bird “Sparky”, which would work for a male or female. She ended up being a female. The first thing Sparky got was a dust bath for mites, then she got fed. Starlings are insectivores and need a high protein diet. So a mixture of cat food, hard boiled egg and applesauce was her main meal.

I am hungry, AGAIN!

It didn’t take long before she was eating a lot and often, about every 20-40 mins during the day that first week, then about every 60-120 mins till 6-8 weeks or until she was feeding herself. I have raised up orphaned baby birds before, but some how you forget how much work it is. Sparky went everywhere with me those first 6+ weeks! When I had a trip to town, she went also. With her cage strapped into the seat and food to go, we went. When she was still very tiny I would tuck her in the middle of my sports bra. That would keep her warm and I am sure my heart beat was soothing to her. When she got hungry, she would let me know by loud chirping. I would then stop my shopping and head out to the car to feed her.

She grew fast like all little birdies do. Her first feathers were a boring plain gray. No “sparkles” till around 60+ days.

See my spots at 74 days & always hunting

I would give her flying lessons in my room with my bed as a landing spot. She learned fast and loved exploring my room. Starlings are like having a flying 2 year old in the house. She was and still is into everything! They are hunters in the wild, and all she does is hunt and hunt! Everything goes into her mouth, just like a toddler. She uses her beak to lift, open, poke, prod, and flip everything! Everything! AND she really loves toes!  She goes after every crumb or speck on the floor. So before letting her out of her cage I inspect the room/house and keep it childproof. Hahaha. Starlings can fly up to 50mph! That said, I keep windows covered when she is out.

Unlike parrots and other “pet shop” birds, starlings don’t like to be petted or touched. But, they want to be on you all the time, unless she is hunting or getting into stuff.

Removing book marks.

When I walk from room to room she follows me and rides on my head or shoulders. Sometimes she gets a wild hair and she goes zigzag flying around the house at warp speed and screeching! It is funny to watch. I have watched her catch bugs mid-flight. Our house is mostly bug free thanks to her.

At around 4 months of age Sparky started talking. She was very shy at first and would practice her words in private. As time went on she got bolder and we noticed that if we put music on or when I am washing the dishes she would talk more. Her first word was, Sparky. Now she says, “Sparky is a good girl, yes you are” and “Jesus loves you”. Plus many other noises and whistles.

She is very entertaining and when we watch a movie (after the popcorn is gone) she joins us. She usually finds a high spot to sit and talk during the movie.

Daniel built Sparky an indoor aviary. So when she is not out with us she can explore and fly about in her cage.

 

Starlings love water. I keep a small tub of water within the bathroom tub for her to bathe in. Sometimes she is in that water 5-6 times! She loves her baths. But, of course, after she bathes she has to land on our shoulders and shake! After each bath she spends a good amount of time preening her feathers and making herself beautiful.



Sparky all sparkled out!

She is 8 months old now. She is nothing like what I thought a pet starling would be, yet she is much more then what I could have imagined. She can never be set free, for people are her flock, and she has not learned how to survive in the wild. Starlings can live around 18 years and there are some neat stories, videos and books about them.

One book I read is called, "Arnie the Darling Starling" by Margarete Sigl Corbo and Diane Marie Barras.

A beautiful Wild Starling, Photo from the internet.

Sparky is now 3 years old. Here she is checking out her Birthday Present.

Abbynormal Spa Time--- When our children were young and I still home schooled  them, my friend Kate and I found the need to get out and  get rejuvenated every couple of weeks. We would plan our different escapes over the phone. Most women think of going to spas or movies to be rejuvenated, not us, we were going kayaking! The night before our outing, I would load the kayaks. Then I would rise at 3am the next  day. I would make a checklist for my older children, load the rest of my gear, and be at Kate’s by 4am. To create the atmosphere of tranquility on the drive out I would put  in one of my nature or bird sound CDs. Sometimes we would talk, yet sometimes we would just be content to be  quiet and listen to the relaxing sounds. Upon arriving at the lake, about dawn, we would unload the kayaks then we would spend a couple of hours paddling around the quite coves. There is something very relaxing and peaceful  about being on the lake at sunrise; the dawn of a new day, when the birds are singing and fish are jumping. We always brought our binoculars along to try to identify the  different birds. We sat in our kayaks and watched the male birds do their version of “Swan Lake” to impress the females. We saw herons standing around on one leg like statues. There were cormorants, grebes and different types of ducks. One particular type of water bird was very noisy  and always kept their distance making them hard to  identify, and as our time had run out, we loaded up the  kayaks to head home to our families. I started the engine then got ready to put it in gear when all of a sudden we heard the water birds very loudly, very near the van. We both started looking all around and out our  windows, it was a very eerie feeling looking for something that loud and close and not being able to find it. It was as if they were there in the van with us! Then almost at the same time, we both remembered the bird CD that was still in the CD player. It was playing!  What were the odds of the same bird sound playing in my van that we were trying to identify on the lake! We got a much-needed laugh out of the situation, and came home refreshed and ready to start a new day. Summer of 1999 (Picture of my friend Kate on one of our trips)