The diary of spending time with Oliver, an African Grey Parrot, where he lived before we were able to bring him to the sanctuary.  The Diary was kept by my daughter.  She and Oliver developed a serious relationship over time.  It is only her that Oliver loves.  And Oliver is, with the emotional maturity of a 4 year old human child, her son who will never grow up.

Summer, 2006

One of the parrots at work is a total crack-up. His name is Oliver. He is a rescued African Grey, and they have no idea where he used to be or what he knows. He is always popping out with words they didn’t know he knew, or why. He hates dark haired men but likes girls, and has decided he wants lots of attention from me, although most of the time he is in one of the grandma’s rooms and I don’t see him. But the other day I witnessed him trying to get one of the dogs to come over, he whistled and said “come here.” Then the next day he was talking to me and he whistled and said “bite me” Apparently he also called grandma Joyce “monkey butt.”

Yesterday Oliver the parrot whistled, made clicking and clucking sounds, then quietly said, “well I can’t work like this.”

Last week I was visiting with Oliver the bird and he said “that girl was stacked, ha ha ha ha”

A few days later I was uncovering his cage and I accidentally made something clang loudly so I said “oh, sorry” and he said “we’re ok.”

Steve’s mother-in-law told me that a couple years ago Oliver bit Steve badly, then said “I like to bite you. Come here. I like to bite you.”

While Joyce and I were laughing about that evil brilliance, Oliver laughed along with us.

Then the next day I stopped for a quick visit while he was in his cage outside, and when I started to walk away, he said “sit” so I stopped and stepped back toward him, and he said “thank you.” He is too much! Little alien.

yesterday I was in Joyce’s room and I said, “oh yeah, Oliver. Do you want him to go out?” and before Joyce could say anything, Oliver said, “Let’s go.” Then he was out on the back deck where a couple of handymen were putting up a handrail, and when I came down the back steps he said to me, “yeah, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

8/10/06— Oliver now rides around on my shoulder and does this whole mating dance for me. Regurgitating and shaking his tail and all that.

more from Oliver:
“Deeanna, I want you to pick up your clothes.”

“Birds are the coolest.”
I’m on the phone and he says, “hang on… sorry”
I’m upstairs while he is downstairs talking to himself and out of the blue I hear, “big breasts.”

him- “Let’s go.” Pause. “Lets’ go.” Pause. “Let’s go.”
me- “You have to wait, bird.”
him- “O.K.”

also from Oliver: “How are you?” Pause. “Oh, that’s too bad.”

While he was on my shoulder I made myself a cup of coffee, then asked him, “Do you want this straw?” and handed him one of those little red stirrer straws. He quickly got a small piece off and acted as if he was going to eat it, so we had a little tug of war with me saying, “No, you can’t eat it, give me the straw.” I finally got it away from him, then he turned towards my face and said, “Oliver straw.”

All this is with me only understanding half of what he says. Can you imagine what all I’d be hearing if I could make it all out?

today Deeanna said, “Oliver, will you please stop that?” and he said, “o.k.”

Oliver:
Deeanna said “I don’t know where my charger went.” and Oliver said, “I took it.”
Oliver tried to bite Deeanna and missed, then said “almost.”
I had him on the desk and he was messing with the keyboard so I closed that drawer, without saying a word about it, then a minute later opened the drawer to type something else and he said, “close the drawer” or “close the door”
The other day he called the handyman by name as the guy walked by and fooled him, so he turned around and started back, thinking his coworker called him. Then he realized it was the bird, said, “oh, that was you!” and Oliver started laughing.
I went into the bathroom, a minute later Steve started calling me, and Oliver told him, “she’s in the bathroom.”

Oliver: “Okay then, bring your underwear.”

Yesterday Oliver said to a female guest, “Spank me.”

Today a guest and I were standing by Oliver’s cage and I asked her “do you have any dietary issues I should tell Steve before breakfast?” and Oliver said, “not yet” before the guest could answer!

A couple days ago Oliver and I were having lunch in the dining room and Steve came out of his office, said something, then went upstairs. Right after that, Deeanna came out of the kitchen and said, “Where’d Steve go?” and before I could answer, Oliver said, “Up.”

A few days before that, Oliver was on my shoulder listening to a guest talk about a couple macaws she knew. She said a macaw started saying out of the blue, “I’m sick. I’m sick as a dog” and his owners had no idea where he picked that up. But soon after, he died! Oliver’s reply was “that happens sometimes.”

Oliver was so busy being fetching trying to get me to scratch his neck, with his head down and his ass in the air, that he fell off me! He landed on the floor, fluttered around behind my chair, then when I picked him up he said, “HELL-o”

Also when he was on my shoulder in the office, a guest came in to check out and Oliver started saying “bye bye…. bye bye” so she said “Don’t rush me bird!” and we all laughed, incl. Oliver. Then when we all stopped laughing, Oliver said, “so what’s up?”

The other day I was in the dining room near Oliver’s cage and I banged my elbow on the back of a chair… I didn’t even say ‘ow’ but Oliver made this ‘ooh-oh’ sound effect for me. I call that his ‘old lady sound effect’ and he also does it every time I sit down or bend over to pick something up.

the other day first thing in the morning when I got there he started his usual asking to come out of his cage by moving his wings while kinda crouching down and trying to stick his face between the bars, and while he was showing off Deeanna heard him say “look…. look.”
and two times now I’ve gone up to his cage, bent over with my hands on my knees and said ‘look at that messy cage’ and he has leaned way over, looked down at the bottom of his cage and made a disgusted ‘uh-ech’ sound.
today he was especially worked up and wanting out as soon as I got there, which he normally doesn’t do because usually I’m too busy to get him out that early, so I said ‘why are you so worked up bird?’ and he said ” ’cause” Probably responding to the “why?” He was also saying ‘sookie…. sookie’ which sounded really funny.

there are traveling nurses who stay at the inn all the time because joe works at the hosp. and one of them, Rita, just loves Oliver… she shows up while he is on my shoulder and she’s trying and trying to get him to say hello, but he just keeps saying “what? what?” instead, so she and I start laughing, and he joins in laughing, then says “silly bird.”

when Blaze and Ruby (cockatoo and macaw) were in the dining room where he is all the time, he said, “This is my room.”

barks like the chihuahuas

Hello, and ok… bye-bye when you get on the phone.

Mimics a burp, then laughs.

out of the blue— “six thousand dollars”

He wass quite impressed by the unloading of the washer and dryer, saying, “Oooooooooooo…… Oooooooo!”

talking to dog— “There he is. Come on, let’s go!”

when a guest called, as soon as I picked up the
phone, from my shoulder Oliver said “Hello” in his deep loud man-voice, and the caller started yakking away immdiately, I hadn’t even said a thing!

he started saying “goodbye” in a girlie voice and right after, “Bye-bye” in his man-voice

“chicken”

“cider”

Oliver said “what’s to do?” in a cute little kid voice

Yesterday two guests were sitting close to Oliver eating their breakfast, and they both swore up and down that they heard him say, “You just said a Freudian slip.” And today I gave him chicken for lunch, saying a couple times “want some chicken?” and a few minutes later when Steve came out of the kitchen, Oliver said, “chicken. chicken.”

“We’re number eight.”

4/07

now barks like the maltese, as well

Deeanna and I having lunch and Oliver cleaning the food off his beak by rubbing it on my shirt… put him in cage and he cleans it off on his perch… Deeanna says, “wash your beak in the water, bird” and Oliver says, “no” so Deeanna says, “did you just tell me no?” and he says, “yes.”

It is now December 08. Daybreak has known Oliver for 2 1/2  years, the last 1 1/2 years since she stopped working at the inn, she visited Oliver every single week without fail…

Three weeks ago, his owners who are selling the inn called and said it was time for Oliver to come live with his one and only love, Daybreak. We prayed for this day. 

Since Oliver arrived, when I walked into the bird room with a fun box for birdie play saying, “Who would like this?” He said, “I would”.

He also says his name is Andrew. And says hello Robert, though there is no Robert here. He met my son Alex one time. A week later he said ‘Alex”. When we want to move Blaze or Clara, the cockatoos, he says,
C’mon” for them to step up for us. Every morning he says, Hello. Every night, Goodnight.

Two years ago, I struck a bargain with someone about a horse. I told a story, I shmoozed to get what I wanted- which  was the nearly dead Mustang mare he had in a little corral. I saw her from the road, observed her utter loneliness and despair, and just did what I needed to do…….. tresspass, and confront.  I played the dumb blonde card to distract him.  I left with a written agreement that, in exchange for him bringing her to my home, she was mine for $600.00.  With no horse-trailer and her completely uncatchable, untouchable, I had no hope of walking her the 4 miles home and I didn’t think she would make it, if I tried. I made calls, trying to get someone to help me get my hands on her myself so that dreadful man would never have to attempt to. I came up empty-handed. I thought about having a vet come and dart her, but then what? Drag her into the trailer? I was pretty sure she would not survive  anesthesia. I prayed for her protection, called on her Warrior Angels to hold her up, and let him trailer her to my place through whatever means it took. He said he could do it. It was the only hope she was ever going to have. I went home and got things ready for her, trapping the other horses for the time being. When Dulcie arrived at my place she almost fell out of the trailer.  She wandered, unsteady on her feet. I’m sure her ride over was hellish for her as weak as she was. I think she survived on  a prayer that sustained her while she worked her way into my little herd of horses, nibbled on a little grass hay, and sipped some cool water. When she got down on the ground to rest, ignoring the caution any horse would have in a new environment, she slept and slept. I didn’t know if she was going to get up. I put her in God’s hands.It was hard to get up in the morning, so great was my dread that she had given up during the night. I tentatively looked out the window, and I counted horses….one, two, three, four…five! She was up, and she was standing with Monet, our Arabian gelding, who was being very solicitous towards her. I was and continue to be very grateful to him for giving her the emotional support she needed to begin to heal her mind, as well as her body. She looked so small. When I saw her from the road I thought I was seeing a yearling, but she was 3 years old. So emaciated, so filthy.A herd environment was obviously exactly what she needed. Eat, sleep, run, buck. Sanctuary, solice, and peace, with the occasional adrenalin-rush of bolting en masse and thundering across the field in response to real or imagined threats in the neighborhood.  Their digestion is excellent, the adrenaline from time to time helps them stay healthy! It very much mimicked the wild life she had known once, free nibbles of grass round the clock if she wanted, and her new friends. I can’t provide miles of daily wandering for my horses, but they’ve got it pretty good. Two Mustangs, an Arabian, a devastatingly gorgeous white-maned chocolate palomino 14 hh mare, and one devil of a P.O.A .  He is a  brilliant problem child, adopted after being a bottle-fed baby and utterly spoiled. Very orally-fixated. He will pick up a stick and poke the other horses with it when they are rolling or resting.  He does try their patience.

I have the occasion to be in contact with many animal rescue people. They  frequently seem to be at an impasse about methods to acquire funds for their needs.  I also notice a little bit of short-sightedness,  a reluctance to be open to possibilities. But I understand what that hesitancy is –  the only thing that really holds people back from trying something, even if it sounds positive and it’s even being offered for free, is lack of knowledge and therefore a lack of confidence about making a decision. I read a book once by a religious leader, his name will come to me, and it was called “Possibility Thinking”. I made me realize that that is a good label for me, I really am a possibility thinker!  I’m so open to good ideas, if anything, a few probably fall out due to overcrowding!  For example, many rescue groups have highly useful images on their sites, that could be used to garner attention and money, used the right way. And one right way, is to allow a good artist (like me) to create art from those images and use that art in an auction on eBay that calls attention to the charitable cause. But there is more…. much much more……. and I will begin to address those things with each visit here.  Do you have questions? Knowledge to input? I’d love to hear from you. My purpose here is to help animal rescuers, both individuals and groups, be able to do an even better job because they have more financial support.  Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes I am one of those people, and I do have an animal  sanctuary that I own with my grown daughter. It is called The Promise Animal Sanctuary, and we are filing papers to become not-for-profit.  We support it through our own work, with very little outside assistance. This month, vet bills are high.  We know how it is to be in the situation many rescuers are in.  Let’s brainstorm, shall we? I’ve learned some answers and I know you have some too.  Remember……  this is an abundant universe and there is unlimited financial abundance out there.   All “It” needs is for the light to be held up so it knows where to go. We can help put up the signposts too.