A Typical Day (in the Life of Mavis)

No day is every exactly the same, but we’ll just go over a typical day when I work.  Of course working different shifts changes things a bit each day too, but I’ll just pick one day. 

My alarm goes off, set to a radio station that I never listen to.  I turn it off immediately and roll out of bed.  Chester has already beat me off the bed and greets me with a wagging tail and some kisses.

We head downstairs and Chester goes outside while I get his breakfast ready.  He gets about 2 cups of food, plus his meds.  I feed him when he comes back inside a few minutes later and then I head back upstairs for my shower after I make sure his meds have all been swallowed.  I emerge a few minutes later – all squeaky clean. 

I give Jewel her food and fresh water.  She gets a mixture of seed and pellets, along with some veggies and a bit of cooked goodies (birdie goodies, of course).  The fish get some fish food and I sometimes add a bit of water to the aquarium if the level has lowered.

I turn the computer on and check email, write my blog for the next day and do some farming at Farm Town on facebook.  Then I open up the cams at Africam to watch while I have my breakfast.  I always log into the Boma to see who is around and chat a bit with them.

Then its time to walk Chester, so I grab my camera and his leash and off we go.  Generally the walk is between 20 minutes and 40 minutes depending on how much time we have and what the weather is like and how many pictures I take.  Chester is looking for something to chase and I’m hoping to get a picture of it before he chases it.    He is on leash, but the critter he is chasing doesn’t know that and will run.

When we return home, I put my lunch together and get it ready to go.  I sometimes have a few more minutes to sit down to watch Africam again before I have to change into my work clothes and go.

Then I go to work and I work.    I recently added apple breaks to my schedule so 2 hours after I get there I take a quick break to eat whatever fruit I brought.  Two hours after that is my 1/2 hour lunch break.  I always have my little netbook with me and if the wifi is working, I log into Africam.   Four hours later it is time to go home.

Chester almost always meets me at the back door when I get home.  He seems to know when I will be there, which is strange since I have the different shifts.  He goes outside while I get his supper ready for him – exactly the same as his breakfast with the same meds.  While he eats, I head upstairs to change into my jeans and t-shirt or sweatshirt.

I then grab something for me to eat and turn the computer on to catch up on email, facebook and Africam.  I open Jewel’s cage door and she spends the evening coming in and out and on top of the cage – sometimes getting off and bugging Chester.

If my daughter is home, I don’t see much of her or her cats, but if she isn’t home we usually have Cyrus hanging around in the living room with Chester, Jewel and I.

We hang out like this until bedtime – sometimes Chester brings one of his toys over so we play tug of war or fetch with it.  When I turn the computer off Chester heads for the door to go outside and while he is out, I give Jewel some hugs and scritches and then put her in her cage for the night.

Then its up to bed for Chester and I so we’re ready to start another day in a few hours.

Nothing too exciting around here.    My weekends are spent doing all the chores and errands that I don’t do during the week – since I don’t do chores and errands during the week.  Every penny I don’t spend on necessities is being stashed away for my trip to Africa.

A lot of thought is still going into this vacation.  I still have to finish paying for my lodging in Kruger and I have to book and pay for my rental car.  Time is flying by and soon I’ll be there.    As I’ve mentioned just a few times before – I’m a tiny bit excited about it.

On Africam for April 16th we saw Elephants, Jackal, Civet, Duiker, Egyptian Geese, Nyala, Wildebeest, Waterbuck, Impala, Terrapin,  Cape Buffalo, Zebra, Warthog, Guinea Fowl, Blacksmith Lapwing and Osprey.  Click here to see all the pictures for the day.

Jewel

Due to the rain over the weekend, I haven’t seen any critters while walking  – so I decided it was time for a Jewel photo shoot day. 

She cooperated fairly well and did a few turns, so I could get different views of her.

Jewel April 14

Jewel April 14

Jewel April 14

Jewel April 14

Jewel April 14

By early afternoon yesterday the sun was starting to show itself, so I took a few pictures of Chester in the yard.  I may show those to you tomorrow. 

On Africam today (the 14th) we have seen Elephants, Baboons, Banded Mongoose, Wildebeest, Hamerkop, Hadeda Ibis, Waterbuck, Impala, Zebra, Nyala, Warthog, Terrapin, Giraffe, Red Duiker and White-tailed Mongoose.  Click here to see all the pictures for the 14th.

Jewel

Jewel, as you know, is my Congo African Grey Parrot.  She came to live with me in January, 1997 at the age of 6 months – so she is 14 years old now – well, 14 1/2 I guess.

African Grey Parrots can live a long time – similar to a human’s life span, so chances are that she will outlive me.  Luckily, Jewel gets along fine with my daughter and will have a home with her when I’m gone.  Of course, I plan on being around for at least another 40 years or so, but when you have a pet that lives this long you have to make plans – just in case.

I suppose I could be attacked by a herd of rampaging elephants or a pride of lions when I’m in Africa later this year or one of those 4 planes I take each way to get there and get home again could go down – but otherwise, I should be here for many more years to enjoy having my Jewel.  Sorry – I have to get my African trip into this in some way. 

Jewel needs a shower right now, but just like Chester – she doesn’t like showers/baths.  She is moulting and growing in new feathers and every evening, I break the sharp tips of the incoming feathers, but a shower would help her so much.  The problem is that she can fly out of the tub and she really squawks when I close the shower curtain to keep her in.  You can tell by the picture that I took of her yesterday that she could really use a shower.

Jewel Jan 1

She knew I wanted to take her up to the shower yesterday afternoon and there was no way that she would step up for me.

So far on Africam today, we have seen Elephant, African Comb Duck, Terrapin, Nyala, Wildebeest, Waterbuck, Zebra (with a new baby), Warthog, Kudu, Hadeda Ibis, Woolly-necked Stork, Impala, Duiker, Egyptian Goose and Goslings, White-tailed Mongoose and Hyaena.  Click here to see all of today’s pictures.

When Chester and I leave for our walk in a few minutes, it is looking like we will have a temperature of -13C with a wind chill of -22C and some light snow falling.  It may drop to -15C just as we are walking though and the high predicted for today is -12C.

Jewel and More

Yesterday when I returned home from work, I found Jewel tangled up in one of her toys.  It is a toy that has been in her cage for ages and I’ve never seen her play with it other than a quick tap at one of the bells.  I was surprised to see her on it while lying on her back, but she did not appear to be in distress – so I didn’t notice that one foot was tangled until she tried to get off it without success.

It was easy to let her loose just by holding the toy up, which loosened the rope and she could then remove her foot herself.  I have no idea how long she was tangled up in it.  She could use her foot right away, but held it up for a few minutes so it must have been sore.

Within a few minutes though she was talking to me as usual, but she didn’t come out of the cage all night even though the door was open and did not eat anything either.  By this morning, she was 100% back to normal – eating, drinking, talking and climbing.  The toy is now out of the cage.

bird toy

This is the toy she was tangled in.  She somehow got one of the ropes going to the top wrapped around her foot.  I hope this happened just before I got home, but she may have been stuck there for awhile. 

I’ve been busy today.  I went to the bank and renewed my mortgage early to get a lower interest rate.    I also arranged a line of credit to help pay for my trip next year.  It will be better to pay bank interest instead of credit card interest until I get it paid off.  I went back to London Drugs and exchanged the NEX-5 for a NEX-5N, since the lens is supposed to work with that.   Thanks so much to London Drugs for exchanging it for me, since it was past the 15 days for refund or exchange.

I put the battery on the charger and went out to cut the leaves in the yard while it was charging.  Then I put the lens on the new camera and it was exactly the same.    The problem must be with the lens and the first camera was likely just fine with it.  But then, I have no idea how to measure zoom in mm.  To me, the 75 mm on my Olympus should be about 1/3 of the 210 mm on the Sony – so why are they the same?

Do different camera manufacturers measure mm’s differently?  I’ve found out that the x is subject to different thoughts, although I’ve found that the 3x is less than the 5x, which is less than the 10x, which is less than the 15x – so that all seems to fit, but the mm’s sure don’t.

OK – I guess I really don’t get it.  I just found my Olympus Camera on the website and it says 15x = 420mm.  This is crazy – they just make up their own numbers.  They put 75mm on the camera itself and say 420mm on the website.  That means the Olympus should be zooming much more than the Sony.  I could have saved almost $300.00 by just keeping the other camera that appears to have been working just fine. 

Here is the Olympus Camera I have.

Here is my Sony NEX-5N.

None of this makes any sense to me, but I think this is all the zoom I’m going to get out of it.   I just got used to the great zoom on the Olympus and was thinking I’d be able to get more – but the sharpness and clarity of the Sony sure beats the Olympus.  I hope this new camera is at least as good as the first one, but it should be even better.  Tomorrow will be its Red River test.

Oh – I still haven’t had a reply from Sony’s PR lady.

Just so I have a picture to put on here today besides the toy that is now out of Jewel’s cage, here is a duck and a seagull that I took this morning with the Olympus.

Gull and Duck Oct 21

Camera

Lots of pictures today – I have sunrise, Chester, Jewel and a crow with some roadkill.

A couple of days ago at work, I asked one of our IT guys (who is a camera expert) what he would recommend for a trip to Africa for critter pictures.  He suggested a Sony NEX-5 and said it should be about $550.  It comes with one lens, but with money, you can get others to fit it.  The lens it comes with is 18-55mm, which really means nothing to me, but apparently is less than my current camera’s zoom of 12x.  I looked online and the reviews are excellent.

Since I was out shopping yesterday, I decided to take a look in a couple of places and also see what the salesmen think of it.  I went to Black’s first and they had the NEX-3 on sale for $600. with a regular price of $700. and the NEX-5 was $800. and did not appear to be on sale.  They were both marked at the full price but a flier  on top of the case had the 3 on sale, but it didn’t mention the 5 even though it also said all digital cameras on sale.   None of the sales clerks there seemed inclined to come over to talk to me and the price seemed a little high, so I just took the sales flier and continued on my way.

Next stop was London Drugs, where I was approached by a salesman before I even reached the cameras.  I told him I was on a fact finding mission and he mentioned that this camera was an excellent choice and that it was on sale.  The sales price for the 5 here was $540. and they did not even have any of the 3′s left, since a newer one had just come out. He expected that they wouldn’t have the 5′s left for long.  We talked and played with it and I really liked it, but I wasn’t there to buy it today.  He told me the sale was on for another 5 days, but he didn’t think whatever they had left would last that long.  He went to the stockroom and came back saying that this was the last one they had and that the number left in all the stores in Canada was only 14.  He also said he could take 10% off the price, since it would be an out of box sale now.  That brought the price down to $485 and I ended up leaving the store with my new camera.  I have 15 days to try it out before the sale becomes final.

The Chester and Jewel pictures today were taken with the Sony and the sunrise and roadkill pictures were taken with the Olympus.  I’ll have to take both cameras for a walk one day so I can take the same pic with each and compare them.  The Olympus is a good camera and I love the 12x zoom, but it takes longer to focus and more time in between shots, compared to the Sony, and the Sony freezes the action.  In the pictures of Chester, you can actually see his tail, instead of a blur.

I did the yard patrol pickup yesterday and could not find any bunny babies at all.  I assume Chester did in fact eat them.  Its not something he would normally do, but the meds he is on are making him hungry all the time.  I did find a little dead Junco, but I don’t know if Chester killed it or something else did.

Chester

Chester

Jewel

Jewel

Next is the road kill – you can go down to see the crow – but the roadkill is right at his feet, so if you don’t want to see that, you must scroll the last part quicker.

Crow with Road Kill

Sunrise Oct 1

On Africam so far today we have seen Zebras, Impalas, Duiker, Starlings and a very wet Spotted Eagle Owl sitting on her soon-to-hatch eggs.  Click here to see today’s pictures.

If you would like to watch the owl on her eggs and possibly her babies as they hatch, you can find her here.

Catching Up

I missed the last couple of days here because of my early work shifts those days.  If I don’t sit down and write as soon as we get back from our walk, I just don’t have the time after work to do so.

Chester is still doing fine.  It has been almost a week since his last seizure ( Wednesday morning last week) and almost a week since he got on the meds.

Jewel is still Jewel.    She talks non stop and plays with her toys when I’m home and busy with things, but I have no idea how much she talks and plays with her toys when I’m not there – I suspect that she sleeps.  Right now she is eating her breakfast, since both Chester and Jewel get fed before I feed myself.  I have to head over to Africam to check out Howwa’s Virtual Boma Cafe for my breakfast.

Anyway, we’ve had some nice weather and so far haven’t got the rain that has been promised the last few days.  My neighbours have put grass seed down on their yard and are having to water it constantly.  Right now it is 18C and going up to 28C by this afternoon, with a 40% chance of  thunder showers this evening.

Tomorrow is the day I’m supposed to find out if I am moving downtown with the Y and I’ll let you know how that goes.

I saw the Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) on our walk this morning – but nowhere near enough time to even think about getting a picture of him.  He flew right in front of us and very close – but then made a quick turn and disappeared over some trees and houses.  No sign of my beaver friends and no sign of any ducks at all, although Chester did find one bunny to stalk.

For my picture today, I am going back a year (and a couple of days) to show you BeBe and if you are interested in the story about how I met her, you can find it here.

BeBe

On Africam today, we have seen the Black Eagle chick (almost ready to fledge), the Spotted Eagle Owl (just laid her first egg), Elephants, Rhinos, Waterbuck, Nyala, and more.  Click here to see today’s pictures.

Jewel

Nothing too exciting on our walk today.  It was 10C under a sunny sky and there is a possibility of thunderstorms later today.  Bring on the rain – the ground is still very dry!

A couple of days ago, I had a photo shoot with Jewel.  We started out on top of her cage, but I was mainly getting beak pictures as she tried to grab the camera.  So, we moved outside and I stood on the deck in the yard to get some pictures.  She was on my hand, with my thumb firmly clamped down on her feet as she is fully flighted.

Jewel

Jewel

Jewel

Jewel

Jewel

Jewel

Jewel

She really is a ham and loves to pose for pictures.

Jewel is a Congo African Grey Parrot and hatched in Manitoba on July 31st, 1996, so she recently celebrated her 15th hatchday.  She has a very large vocabulary and I have never tried to figure out how many words she can say.  She knows to ask for what she wants, she tells Chester what to do and asks him if he wants to go outside, or she just waits until I am on the phone to start going through random words and phrases.  She doesn’t learn words because I want her to learn them.  I wanted her to know the phone number here  and although she can say the numbers, she prefers to put them in an order that she likes best and has never said them in the right order.

On Africam today, we have seen an African Fish Eagle, Elephants, Nyala, Cape Buffalo, Impalas, Guinea Fowl, Wildebeest, Zebras and more.  Click here to see today’s pictures.

Jewel

Its a rainy day today and only 8C in the early afternoon.   But, I guess we need the rain, so the grass will grow and the trees will leaf out.  Of course this means I won’t get any of my outdoor chores done today – guess I should have done them yesterday – LOL.

So – today’s post is about Jewel, my Congo  African Grey Parrot.  She will be 15 years old on July 31st this year and she came to live with me 14 1/2 years ago.

Jewel

Here is Jewel today, perched on the door to her cage.  This is her favourite place to perch when the cage door is open (as it always is when I am home).

I have no idea how many words are in her vocabulary.  She sometimes makes her own words up and they seem to fit.  I may have mentioned her ‘okabye’ which she made up to use instead of ok good-bye and that my daughter and I now use too.  Her newest phrase that I heard for the first time yesterday was ‘shake a popcorn’.  Popcorn is her favourite treat and she often asks for it if she knows I am in the kitchen.  She does say shake a paw often and will offer her foot if I say shake a paw, so she knows what that means.  I have no idea if she substituted the popcorn for the paw just to get the word popcorn in more often in the hopes that I will pop it more often, or if she used that phrase because she has seen make shake the popcorn bag after getting it out of the microwave.  Maybe one day she will tell me.

It is amazing how rainy weather can make a person feel tired.  Or maybe I’m just tired because I’ve stayed up too late the last couple of nights while watching the cams at Africam, but I am officially tired right now.

Have a good day!  

Texas in Manitoba

What a drive.   Here in Texas (in my dreams), it is a pleasant 23C under a sunny sky.    Back in Winnipeg it is -23C with a windchill of -34C.  The weather people can tell me all they like, that there is heavy snowfall between Winnipeg and Texas and that Texas has snow and ice – but they are not in my dreams and can’t tell me what to dream about. 

I probably drove a few of my co-workers a little crazy at work yesterday as I announced every once in a while where I would be if I had left – crossing the border now, passing by Fargo, into South Dakota, here we are in Nebraska – and so on.  Speaking of work – the Y had its annual general meeting on Monday.  Among other things, this is when they had out  presents to employees and volunteers who have reached 5 or a multiple of 5 years service.  I received my 10 year service present.  It is a very nice pen and pencil set.  I did not go to the meeting since I had worked all day and don’t like to leave Chester and Jewel alone any longer than my work shift unless I have to.  The news brought back by some who attended is that we will be building a new Y in Winnipeg – not sure exactly where yet – but with the way membership has been booming, we really need this.  I hope to hear more details soon.  I am assuming that I will be asked to be the branch manager and I have already started lining up my staff  

I worked for the provincial government here for many years.  No acknowledgment was made for any annual milestone until you reached 25 years.  At that time they gave me a plaque (well, actually – they gave me two plaques, because they put the wrong years on the first one).  They also gave me $30. to put on a luncheon for myself.

As I have been sitting here typing this, I am (of course) watching Africam.  I haven’t seen much on Nkorho or Elephant Plains this morning, but Tembe has been busy.  I have watched an elephant, some wildebeests, a waterbuck,  a zebra, and a warthog.

Elephant and Wildebeest

Wildebeests with a Waterbuck behind them

Zebra

Warthog

Whether I’m in Manitoba or Texas – Chester needs his walk – so off we go 

January 23rd

Well the temperature got as high as -26C yesterday and then dropped to -28 by 9pm.  Amazingly enough it then began to rise and by 5am when I got up, it was -21C.  It is supposed to continue rising up to -7C by afternoon and -5C by evening.  I’m not holding my breath on that one though 

On Sundays, Chester gets his walk after work since I start kind of early to walk him before work.  He still gets to run in the fenced yard though – so he does ok.  He also gets to spend the day lazing on my bed while I’m at work.  Jewel has to spend her day in her cage while I am at work, but otherwise she is on top of it or on the side of it and sometimes even inside it with the door open while I am home.  Of course she has a nice large cage.  In order for me to move it from room to room, I have to take it apart, since it is too wide for the doorway.

It is still January – so it is still busy at work.  This should be starting to die down a bit soon – but it is always busy there now.  There are 4 times as many members there now than there were when I started working there 10 years ago.

The picture of the day is from (surprise, surprise) Africam!  I was so excited to see a giraffe there in the early morning.

Giraffe at TE

Giraffe at TE

Then, of course there was an elephant at TE also.

Elephant at TE