Three
major events took place in 2002: 1) i discovered birds as pets  2) I
completely retired 3) being judgement proof  The most fascinating thing
to me were the birds and I learned a lot about them. I started off with
one budgie--you call them parakeets---then another--after that I got a cockatiel and then another. I would eventually get 2 zebra finches not knowing
they are worse than rabbits! Before I knew it I had 19 finches! I,
finally, got wise and put the females in a separate cage.

Let's
start at the beginning. I wanted a pet and was thinking of a pug--if
you read the early parts of this series you will know I had a pug that I
absolutely adored. There were three main things holding me back with
the first being the responsibility of walking them, not being able to go
to go away for a weekend--no, I wouldn't put the dog in a kennel. The
second was that Gateway required a $500 deposit for all dogs and then,
the deal breaker, the scoop if they poop! On a coffee break at Big
Louie's one of the other servers started talking about birds which
perked my interest. The following week I was out looking at birds. At
one of the pet shops I talked to the owner and told them what I wanted,
which was a pet that wouldn't be a lot of trouble! (Now I ask you--is
there such a thing???)

I
really didn't have the patience to train a bird so he suggested I get
two budgies as they would keep each other company. My first question was
about bites as my doctor had warned me that if I got a bird bigger than
a cockatiel or one that had a sharp bite it could cause problems
because of my taking coumidin. That was the first mistake I made as
later I learned a single bird is more of a pet because they had to adopt
you as part of their flock but if they had a mate why would they need
me?!?!!? Oh yes to feed them, give them clean water and clean their
cage!

I
immediately fell in love with 2 budgies--a male and female--and between
the cage, food and toys it cost me $96. I decided to call them Butch
and Cassidy after the Sundance Kid movie. Instead of doing all the reading I could on the Internet and
bird books BEFORE buying them, being the kind of person who when he
wants something wants them now, I started doing research. I went to
Border's and read book after book, bought 2 bird magazines plus a book
on budgies.

The
first thing I had to do, and was a lot easier than I thought it would
be or people told me, was to change their diet from only bird seed to
pellets and cooked food.

Birds
are really very easy to take care of--basically feeding them once a
day, changing their water and once a week a good cleaning of their cage.
I discovered very early the 'trick' of layering the bottom of the cage
with newspaper so that each morning all I had to do was pick up the top
page and throw it out leaving a clean bottom.

Many
people told me to keep their wings clipped so they couldn't fly out the
door or get into trouble. I didn't--I let them out of their cage any
time I was home making sure the doors were locked as well as the
windows. They very easily learned to return to the cage on their own at
10 PM for a snack.

Oh
yes--I did train the birds to be on my time. I covered their cage after
the late news and didn't take it off until I woke up. I never heard any
noise from them in the morning.

Yes
I did learn to find poop all over and I was surprised at the damage
they could do to anything hanging on a wall like photographs, clocks and
plaques!
This was just the beginning of my 'bird history'!