Jasmine Chomping Vegies In The Kitchen

The weekend before last Jasmine decided to help herself to the cucumber that was sitting on the counter. She often gets cucumber in her 'vegie bowl' in her cage and she likes it very much. But she decided she'd like to chomp right into the whole thing.
So then we gave her a large piece of fennel to chew on. She likes fennel very much too and so this was great fun for her.
















I took a number of shots to show Jazzy holding the fennel in her hand, but every time I took the photo she had put it down again.








The photos that came out look almost like Jazzy's having a yoga stretching session or something.


















Here she is holding the fennel up.


And now she looks like she's waiting for a bus, just leaning over, but as you can see she has fennel in her beak.
Jazzy also loves carrot, she especially likes cooked carrot that's still slightly crisp to the bite. This however, is raw carrot, which she also gets regularly in her vegie bowl.
And now, well, who knows what she was up to... perhaps she was thinking: 'Anyone fancy some chips?' (This is a famous line in our family. It's from the movie "Calendar Girls" - one of the girls during an exercising stretching session says this in perfect timing and everyone immediately abandons the stretching to go get some chips. If you haven't seen this movie I thoroughly recommend it for a really good laugh and good time - based on a true story.)
Oh yes, Jazzy does watch movies and she has seen this one!

Jasmine and Her Continuing Tousle With Air Quality

I'm spending much of many of my days up our local mountains carrying Jasmine, our African Grey parrot, in her backpack travel cage. As the temperature increases here during the summer, the air quality in the local environment of our apartment and its surrounds continues to worsen.When we got Jazzy at the local pet store she already frequently scratched herself around her neck, resulting in patches where feathers were removed by her scratching. She improved enormously when she first came to live with us. Since then we moved to another apartment and our environment has become increasingly filled with strongly perfumed cleaning agents, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, aerosol spray products, insecticides, cosmetics and perfumes that are universally used. We're unable to keep these out of our apartment and even the apartment block grounds smell strongly of a mixture of the many products emanating from people's apartments.

When at home: my eyes sting, skin itches, it's hard to breathe, and many other things too boring to list here. I watch myself losing a battle to keep ahead of these symptoms. I watch my husband developing increasing 'allergy' symptoms when he's around strongly scented products. Almost everyone we meet claims they have, or someone in their family has, allergies, asthma, headaches, rashes. But most heart-wrenching of all, I watch our little Jasmine, scratching, and since some weeks now, actually pulling out her feathers.

When we got Jasmine I had no idea that we would encounter such problems with her, especially since, due to chemical injury as a child, I'm unable to use strong chemical agents and so we have none used or directly present in our home. It turns out that she has become the 'canary' in our apartment 'coal mine'.
She still sings, chats, laughs, plays and is happy, but her skin is irritated. When I take her out to the fresh air in the mountains all this scratching and fussing stops. But if we meet someone who smells of fabric softener in their clothes, or who is wearing perfume, or uses strongly scented cosmetics, she immediately starts scratching furiously.

We're unable to move from where we live right now. We've bought more large, powerful air filters designed to remove chemicals from the air. They certainly help, and without them Jasmine cries, screeches in discomfort, and becomes worse with the scratching and even becomes lethargic. Around the apartment, where Jasmine goes, there go the filters with her. In March we added a second air filter and we have both filters running continuously in whatever room Jasmine is in. Last week we added two more and this week we'll be receiving another one.

These air filters are helping but unfortunately they're not able to deal with the concentrations that are coming into our living space. It seems that with each passing month stronger concentrations and larger amounts are being used. Floor polish is used on the apartment block hallway floors two to three times a week. There is no ventilation in the stairwells and so this brings fumes from the polish into our home for many hours. The concentration of fabric softeners and scent used in laundry products makes the laundry drying on people's balconies incredibly strong. These two factors alone have a big effect on Jasmine.

If I knew someone who could take care of Jasmine in a relatively toxin-free environment I would gladly give her to them in order to keep her well and safe. I've discovered that the papers we were given when we bought her do not correspond to her identity given on her leg band, so we don't have her papers of origin. We're currently looking into this, but without papers of origin it's not possible to take an African Grey out of the country, which means I can't send her to someone I know who could take care of her in a good environment.

Even when Jazzy is uncomfortable she sings and gives kisses and lots of love and is a very good sport. When she complains by being noisy, if I can change something to improve the air conditions she invariably stops making noise and resumes playing normally very soon after.

Birds always try instinctively to show a good face even if they don't feel well because a flock will shun a bird that is unwell. This is why a bird can appear well and then seemingly all of a sudden become very unwell and even die.

It's devastating to witness the havoc we're creating on our planet. My own suffering or that of other humans is so much easier to accept: we're creating it after all, and what we get to some extent, just by being a part of society, we are a part of reaping in some way. But innocent creatures such as birds, frogs, bees, fish, turtles,.... They suffer more than we do (at least so far), without having contributed to this destruction.
















Living, watching this incredibly beautiful, vital and brave creature who lives with us, pull out one feather after another in irritated distress, slipping slowly, but gradually each day, as a result of our ignorant actions is enough to break a heart.

So I continue to take Jazzy to spend as much of our days in fresh air as I can manage until we're able to move somewhere more independent of others' personal use of the myriad products available today.

This means that I have much less energy and time available to write blog posts and to paint. There are still many beautiful sights and lovely days and moments in our lives. But I sure hope that we all in society can find a way to live that allows human kind and the earth to thrive into the future.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this blog. It's very rewarding and is a fun experience thanks to you. Please forgive the more emotional nature of this post; I've tried hard in the past to present data uncluttered by personal emotion in previous posts about toxic chemicals in our society. But the heartache of watching a beloved and innocent parrot suffer, pushes me to plead with anyone who can relate to what we're doing to ourselves and our loved ones.
We're playing with a very dangerous path into the future, and if individuals do not educate themselves and wake up to these dangers soon, we will be driven by a consumer capitalist economy to destruction, taking all that we value down with us. It's a huge problem, one bigger than I can possibly understand and one which I know that I'm equally a part of the problem.

But one thing is for sure: if we could each, as individuals, stop buying these products that are creating these toxic effects it would slow down their use and their production and this would at least be a start to helping improve our and our planet's future.

A Evening Walk At La Col De La Faucille, Jura, France

It has been very hot this last week so we drove up the Jura mountains yesterday evening and went for a walk at La Col De La Faucille. It was amazingly fresh and cool. There was a pleasant breeze.




The trees are tall here and smell strongly of pine resin.











Looking out over the valleys toward the West huge stretches of sky can be seen. (As usual, click on photos to enlarge.)





At the edge of the path is an incredibly steep drop all the way to the bottom of the first valley.





We saw a very odd tree stump...



...that looked like something had melted it into some sort of wax figure or piece of coral.


There were flowers everywhere, even the dandelions had only just gone to seed up here.





There were lots of wild roses.






There were yellow, white, and lots of purple flowers.


Among the vegetation there is often a huge boulder or two here and there.








The rock formations on the Jura are very interesting.












The rock looks squished together from lots of smaller rocks and there are fissures all throughout. The color is exquisite, mixing blues and greys with reds and rusts.




We walked further along the mountain for nearly an hour when we realized it was getting rather late and we did have to walk back! The sunset was gorgeous.



The light reflecting from the tree trunks glowed pink red.


















As we walked back at a quick pace to avoid being eaten by all the insects that were gathering. I guess we looked like a great feast, and whenever we stopped we were instantly surrounded.Yes, Jazzy did come along, though she was most surprised at our late departure from home for such an outing. She's usually in bed at about this time. Here she is, with one of the flaps on her backpack cage down to keep her protected from the breeze as the sun receded.


The sky grew luminous after the sun had set.










The light reflected off a long expanse of cloud further north up the same valley.










Looking North towards the Geneva valley side of the Jura there was a huge set of clouds building up to storm proportions. During the drive back down we saw lightning flashes from this foaming mass.






As we came to the end of our walk and arrived back at our starting point, Jazzy was sleepy. You might be able to detect her phasing in and out here, it even showed up on the camera!One last glimpse back before driving back down to the other side of the Jura. We arrived home, refreshed, contented and well exercised.

Jasmine Asks To Go For A Walk And To Take A Shower

Yesterday afternoon I came home to a bird, Jasmine of course, who asked to go for a walk. Jazzy said: "We're going for a walk", and she repeated this insistently. I had intended to take her for a walk that morning, but unexpectedly I had to go into town instead. It was rather late in the day, and laziness almost got the better of me, especially since it looked like it was going to rain. But Jazzy kept saying, "Do you want to go for a walk?", "We're going for a walk", "I'm going to go for a walk" until finally I knew we had to go or Jazzy would bust.

As soon as I went out of the room and came back into the living room with her travel cage and I said to her, "Ok, we'll go for a walk" Jazzy immediately replied: "Thank you!" Well! What could I say? Sometimes she blows me away with her appropriate conversation, so I said, "You're welcome." She was so excited and happy once I'd agreed.

As soon as we got outside it did start to rain. But we were going for a walk no matter what; and we kept going. Jazzy was happily saying, "We're going for a walk." While we were out we even had lightning and thunder, but this didn't phase Jazzy at all. We sat on a rock under a tree while Jazzy contentedly munched on banana and apple. She had also mentioned "some apple" before we went out - so it was clear what that meant!

When we got back home, Jasmine then said: "Do you want to go for a shower?" "I'm going to take a shower." It might be hard to believe, but she was actually asking to have a shower. She always takes a shower in the morning - this has been routine for quite some time. But recently Tony has been taking a shower when he gets back from work in the evening, and Jazzy has been accompanying him. This has evolved into her wanting to take another shower in the evening, and now, very often in the late afternoon as she waits for him to come home, she says she's going to take a shower.

So, yes, she did get to go for a shower. There would have been little peace in the house otherwise - she would have kept saying it quite emphatically. And who can resist such an amazing little being when you know she really does want to do something. Whenever possible and appropriate I try to respond if she clearly wants something and it's not bad for her.

In the morning, just after she gets up she jumps into her shower routine. Often this involves standing in the hallway for a few minutes while clothes and towels are being gathered. We have two shower curtain poles stretching across the hallway and Jazzy stands on these.

In the bathroom she stands on the shower curtain rail. While I'm taking my shower she chats and runs through much of her vocabulary. It's a time to be totally silly, sing, dance and say whatever comes to mind, whether it makes any sense or not. There is also a plastic hanger arranged in different ways for her amusement. She works it free and then tosses it either into the bath or onto the floor.









When I'm done showering Jazzy takes hers. These few photos are taken with flash. I don't like to do that at all because I read in a camera manual that it can hurt pets eyes to use the flash on them. You'll see me in some of the shots almost involuntarily putting my hand in front of her face to shield her from the light.

I tell her it's her turn to take a shower and ask her to turn around on the pole and then tell her to 'up up' onto my hand. Before I put her under the water I say: "ok, are you ready, here we go", so that she knows when to expect to get wet. She really prefers that bit of notice.

After she gets her feet wet, I say: "Roll over" and she leans over knowing that I'll have my hand under her supporting her weight. She holds onto my hand with her feet, but that's a bit slippery. Then she gets a good soaking on her tummy and sides and tail.

I tell her when we're going back upright and she gets her back done more thoroughly. She allows me to move her wings very very gently and I tell her each thing I'm going to do before I do it so she knows exactly what to expect. Then she stays as long as she's happy there, getting her back soaked and the top of her head. Then when she makes moves wanting to leave, I put her back up on the railing.

Then we have a conversation about that was a "good shower" and that "Jazzy's a good girl" and such like.

After all the showering is done she goes into her living room cage to dry off a bit and to get some veggies and pellets before we all have breakfast together.

Rain Rain Rain and More Rain in the Pays de Gex, France

We've had a tremendous amount of rain these last weeks. It rains almost every day and the sun shines infrequently. This is great for air quality, but we're beginning to wonder if we'll all evolve into fish soon! The land is green, very green.





The skies are often a dull grey, floating by in an amorphous mass. But sometimes the clouds transform into masses of shapes and shades.
Every once in a while it looks as though it'll clear up and let some light comes through.


Occasionally the sky is filled with brilliant hues of pinks, purples and blues. I had never seen a sky quite like this one with such a variation in greys along with this vibrant, almost cornflower blue.

This orange-hued sky is totally dramatic, looking like a dust storm is whirling its way forward at high speed.

















This morning Jasmine and I went for a walk. Well, Jazzy was in her travel cage scrambling around the bars while I did the actual walking.

She announced every few minutes: "I'm going for a walk" a phrase she invented as I've never said to her "I'm" going for a walk, because "walks" are something we always do together. So she's always heard me say "We're going for a walk."

We have code names for different activities so Jazzy gains an awareness of how long we'll be away and if she's joining us or not. And I've often said "I'm going out" or "I'm going jogging" (which really means I'm going for a walk on my own for about an hour or so) and other things. She must have decided that saying "I'm going for a walk." was a good thing to say. And she's right!

While we were out it was sprinkling gently and the air was clean and fresh, even a bit chilly. The clouds were covering the mountains and creeping down the foothills.


Jazzy entertained herself by trying to remove the press stud on the cage backpack window flap that I'd put down in order to protect her from the breeze and getting cold.

The countryside looks a bit tropical, or at least that's what pops into my imagination.












Here and there are flower buds waiting for a bit of sun to shine before they burst out.










These cows looked perfectly posed for a group shot.

The dashing apparel of this Iris can't be subdued by the rain.
And even the puddles have interesting features and colors in them.
Jazzy also had a great time on her 'walk', and to enhance her trip she ate some of her favorite food: banana. So, while we long for some sunshine brightness, there's still a lot to enjoy when going out and about.

Sugar Cube Art

The weather has been warm enough for us to sit outside the market cafe again.

We noticed that the sugar cubes have changed. You can see the cute cartoon wrappers from last year in 'Sugar Cube Cartoon'.

I was delighted to find that the wrappers now show portions of the Bayeaux Tapestry. The Bayeaux Tapestry is a 20 inch by 230 ft long embroidered cloth depicting in pictures the events leading up to the Norman Invasion of England in 1066. It also includes comments in latin around the illustrations. (As usual, click on photos to see larger image).The tapestry is embroidered in wool yarn on a woven linen cloth. It's a fascinating work of art, and illustration of history.
Of course, Jazzy was at the market too, looking a little cowboyish (a new slant on Dr. Seuss's 'Cat in the Hat'). She was still wondering why she has a hat over her cage, but soon came to appreciate the shade and continued eating.




If you've seen any interesting sugar cube designs I'd love to hear about them, and if you'd like to send a photo, it'd be fun to post more fancy sugar cubes on DweezelJazz blog.

Jasmine Takes A Bath

These days Jasmine takes a shower every morning - a proper shower in the bathroom, but that will be the topic of another post coming up soon. She occasionally also likes to take a bath.
Sometimes she splashes around in her water bowl, and even though this is far too small for her to fit into she can get herself and, most especially, her surrounds impressively wet. This is the signal that she wants a bath and to fill up her bathing bowl with water.

Jazzy's bathing bowl is a large stainless steel bowl which sits inside a metal ring in her cage. This bowl is available for $11.45 from 'The Bird Safe Store' and is called is called "The Stainless Steel Coop Cup, 64 oz".


She spreads her wings to get them wet, and flaps and turns to fit herself in the bowl somehow.





She tests the water with her beak...


puffs her feathers out in preparation to get wet...





...comes in at different angles...


...feet all the way in...








...and comes up the other side.
















Then she spreads herself, wings fully stretched out, over the bowl.




She twists and turns and manages to get her tail submerged.






She's all motion. It's a little difficult to figure out where her head is in this photo: but it's right up front with her beak against the edge of the rim of the bowl.



You can see she has managed to get her tail fairly wet.










After another tail immersion she clambers up the bars, tail feathers still spread out.
Jazzy is quite a blur of movement when she's taking a bath, but this gives an idea what it's like to see her splash around.



At the end she sits regrouping for a moment, taking stock of her state.



Most of the time Jazzy's 'swimming pool' isn't filled with water - instead, it's filled to the brim with toys, and it becomes what she calls her 'toy bowl'. Jazzy loves to sit on the edge of it, selecting foot toys. She plays there for hours every day, choosing one toy after another to chew on, submerge in her water bowl, toss into her pellet bowl, or simply drop to the bottom of the cage to see how it falls, and to hear the sound it makes.

Jasmine Sees Snow

Jazzy has seen it snow before, but last weekend she saw it snow heavily.

The flakes were so thick and sometimes large that it wasn't possible to see more than a block or two away.



















Jazzy took this all in her stride.

(She looks rather pterodactyl or tyrannosaur-like in this profile shot, doesn't she!?)








She was curious to see the flakes and to see the white 'stuff' building up on the balcony.

Later, I brought in a handful of snow from the balcony and made it into a fairly large snowball. I showed it to her, saying it was 'fun', which is our keyword for knowing something is safe. She showed immediate interest and started playing with it, chomping holes out of it with her beak.

She's quite fearless when it comes to most new things. She seems to enjoy the excitement of something new and challenging, so long as she knows you're there to keep her safe at the same time.

Flying and fun indoors continued as normal...




...as she comes into a landing at her play station...



(To see more about Jazzy's play station you can go to a previous post: "Jasmine On Her Play Station".)





...and settles herself...










...for another good look at it snowing.

Jasmine's Fancy Footwork

Jazzy has amazing feet. Sometimes they look very compact and cute.

At other times they look particularly prehistoric. She also has strong legs.

She's able to do all sorts of quick manoeuvres to get around places.













And she has a very wide stretch between her legs so she can reach across quite long distances.








They hold her steady during otherwise engrossing activities, such as eating.







When she stands on flat surfaces they stretch out spindly and long.
Having two toes forward and two back give her incredible dexterity and flexibility.She has a scaly pattern on her feet and they're soft and warm to the touch, unless she's cold.



Her nails allow her to keep a firm grip. Often she allows herself to hang from just one nail, and she's a heavy girl!



She can pick up all sorts of things: toys, food... And when she does that, her feet become more like hands. She can be amazingly strong with them and has an incredibly tight grip and she can also choose to be incredibly gentle and delicate with them.



She hangs and swings, and it's amazing to watch how quickly she can move along using her feet and her beak to make contact with whatever she's working her way across.












She uses the crook in her leg, which is a bit like a heel or an ankle to lean on when she's balancing or even when she's sitting one- legged on a perch.










She can swing, hang out and do all sorts of silly things.

And then she can look totally serious, as if to say, whatever you might think about my feet, they're pretty handy.

Jasmine And Her Tousle With Poor Air Quality

Jasmine loves to take showers these days. She goes into the bathroom and takes a proper shower, and if she doesn't get a chance to do that, she splashes in her water bowl. Here she is with her tummy still wet from having taken a shower earlier in the morning.



She likes to hang out on her play station and play with her toys.







Well, she does for a short while and then she starts flying...



























...from chair to chair (and even to lamps, even though lamps aren't 'allowed').




But she never stays in one place for long...













Back to the play station...













On to the top of the air filter (this too is forbidden territory because she could reach the electrical cable and chomp on it - not a good idea!)

The air filter has always been placed three or four feet from Jazzy's cage and we thought this should work for the entire room.

But we live in an apartment block near a major road and the air quality is often poor. Neighbors use strong cleaning agents, laundry detergents and fabric softeners so that regularly throughout the day some chemical agent enters the apartment. Pesticides are used on the nearby fields to safeguard the crops. There are also at least three building sites for new apartment building complexes within one to two blocks of our place. Several times a day there is a constant stream of cars and buses going to and from the school at the end of our road. To sum it all up: that's a fair amount of pollution.

African Greys are known to have allergies and be sensitive to air quality. Jazzy already had allergies before she came to live with us. She scratches at the back of her neck, and I've noticed that this regularly coincides with when I'm experiencing difficulties with the air myself.

Recently Jazzy had become constantly very very loud and even aggressive. She has also been scratching tonnes more and, as a result, has lost even more of the little feathers on her neck, leaving soft down exposed. No matter how many toys I gave her or how much I tried to entertain her it didn't solve her dissatisfaction.

The air quality around here has become noticeably worse in the last month or so and in desperation, after weeks of enduring Jazzy's very loud and poor behavior, I put the air filter a foot away from her cage and pointed the vents under it. It's absolutely incredible how changed she is since then: she's extremely gentle, she chats but doesn't heckle, she's playing with her toys like never before. Her aggression is totally gone. She's bright and sparky again - a happy bird!

With such a dramatic change in her behavior from being so consistently difficult to transforming into just about angelic with the filter close to her, I wonder how many other pet birds there are who are having difficulties with the air quality around them? For more information about the air filter see previous post: "Air Filters For Asthma, Allergies and Chemical Sensitivity". I'm so pleased to see her happy again. She plays with her beads...




...chomps on her straw toys...










...stops to take a breather...















...and of course, does silly things for fun and to make us all laugh.

Jasmine Goes To Market In Her Winter Travel Cage

Just over a week ago, Jasmine went to the market in her winter cage: the Wingabago travel cage. To see her summer travel cage see previous posts: Jasmine Goes Backpacking and Jasmine Goes To The Market.






Despite the cooler weather, the market was out in full.







We raced to get roast chickens before they sold out. The owner of the stall jokes with us about Jazzy. Fortunately, Jazzy is completely ignorant of our dubious behavior with regard to these meals.Jazzy loves to come to the market because she's adored and admired from beginning to end of the outing. She has many fans and just soaks it all up. If we don't take her out as expected, she lets us know at home that we should be going somewhere!

One time we were in a hurry and couldn't stay long; we rushed in got a chicken and rushed home. We took Jazzy even though it was a short outing. For the rest of the day she was most put out by not having stopped to say hello to her friends.



We headed up the street looking at all the stalls, laden with interesting and enticing food.














There are more cheeses here than it's possible to count.













We usually only go a few paces and Jazzy meets someone new.











We passed the colorful flower stall, working our way up to the cafe.













This time there were three cups because we were lucky still to have our friend with us.


More friends come to say hi to Jazzy.

She was getting a little chilly so I had put my scarf on the top of her cage.It's loads of fun watching everyone enjoy Jazzy. Some feed her apple and banana from a container we bring with us. Jazzy loves apple and banana and we never go out without them. It's very clear that she feels no trip is complete without them.








On the way home she cozied up to Tony because he's always warm and he wrapped her cage in his coat.

Jasmine's Musical Chairs

Jasmine has two large cages to hang out in, and she likes both.But she also loves to be out and about round the house. She has places where she's 'officially' allowed to go (and of course places where she's not, but often goes anyway). One of her places is the tops of chairs.
We arrange them throughout the house so she can come and go as she pleases in either short hops or long flights.


Sometimes she tests her wings and flaps, with no intention at that precise moment to leave her post.




After a few test tries on her wings she'll then poise herself ready for takeoff.
















Then comes lift-off.Although this photo isn't clear, I just love the way it looks. A fantastic blur of Jazzy in the air, red tail brilliantly bright.



At other times it's nice to sit in the kitchen basking in the afternoon sun.
















Sometimes she likes to be sought after and picked up.