November 2009

Dear Humans Birds and (of course) Elephants,

Only my looney dog, Lola, would think a piece of brillo is a food treat. That dog lives through her stomach, nothing else in the world is important. This morning, Aristophanes, my scarlet macaw, was playing on the sink, looking dreamy eyed at Mugsy, my great Dane whom he loves, when I took a piece of brillo away from him because I didn't want him to play with it. Lola, my mixed dachshund, saw me holding it and decided it, like anything else remotely edible, was something wonderful to eat and sat and looked at it as she drooled and begged. The dog is nuts.

Luckily, she only eats things that are food based. She would have dropped the brillo if she had gotten it. My friends dog used to eat small rugs and other inanimate objects and needed sections of his intestines removed, but I digress.

Welcome to the November edition of The Catskill Exotic Bird Club Newsletter. It has been a good month. Yesterday, Little Matthew B and I did a really nice adoption. We brought an African Grey Parrot, that needed a new home, to Alice Chanampa. If everyone remembers the story of Alice and Yago, you will understand why this adoption brought us such happiness from both ends. If you do not remember the story, go to our website, birdclub.com , click on articles and go to the story of Alice and Yago. We felt as if we did a double Mitzvah (Hebrew for the commandment of a good deed) one for the person and one for the bird. Any bird that is lucky enough to have Alice as his person is a lucky bird and Alice benefits from the love of the bird as well. I wish every adoption went as well. Some do!

Another year is quickly coming to an end, and our country is approaching an astounding new beginning, a renaissance of kindness and humanity (I hope) You can see the changes everywhere you look. Most of the leaves are gone from the trees and the weather is transitioning to brisk and cold. Looking back, our 18^th Annual Bird Show was terrific. This year, besides the judging, vendors, good food and overall educational ambiance, we had a parrot training demonstration that was spectacular. Our mission is to help pet birds live a happy life and teach the public to appreciate, love and care for them........I think that we accomplished that big time with our show. I want to thank everyone who took part in making it so successful, especially Little Matthew B who worked so hard putting it all together. Yes, despite the lousy economy that is in evidence all around us, we still did a great job and we were quite well attended.

Tonight we have Terri Jones, of the Arcadia Bird Sanctuary, and her lovely granddaughter, Caitlin who will teach us how to make toys for birds. Along with these great people, we have Leslie Wallace, of the Staten Island Bird Club, and her beautiful greater sulphur crested cockatoo, Lola. Leslie may bring other birds as well.......I hope she does because I am anxious to see them.

Next month is our covered dish holiday dinner and penny social.....Please try to be there. The more people that come, the more variation we have on our menu, and don't we all love to eat. Of course, depending upon the weather, birds are always welcome to share our repast. Bring your stuff to donate for the penny social..........Just bring good stuff that people will want to take home, please.

We plan some interesting things for next year. We plan to offer a scholarship to a local High School graduate who will be involved in an animal related field. We also plan on doing bird related contests for our local elementary schools. I will talk more about this at our meeting.

Our 501C3 is in the offing and things are good.

I forwarded information on a "Bird Cruise" to everyone on my email list....It really sounds nice. Our speaker in January will talk about it....

I had lunch with Fritha, the greatest elephant in the world, today and so I am a happy human.

Take care of yourselves and be the best person you can be for your birds.

Until next month,

Love,

Richie