I've always been a nature lover and really prefer to be surrounded around what mother nature provides. I always found myself to take note of the birds in the sky, the bug on the ground, the leaf on a tree that appears different from the rest. There's a comfort, an ease and peaceful feeling that nature provides. It soothes my soul. Having been diagnosed with depression years ago, feelings of unhappiness just simply exist and the day I picked my sweet Bailey (A Congo African Grey) who had just hatched in October 2001, was the day I think I smiled for the first time in a long time.
Over the coarse of a year I found myself by choice of coarse with 3 beautiful Congo African Grey babies, a Blue and Gold Macaw and a Senegal. Getting up in the morning was wonderful for the first time in my life and for the first time in many many years. To hear the joyful whistles, the gentle calling of "mommy" to get up, was music to my ears. The emptyness I had felt in my life was no longer.
I remember the day when I saw the 3 Timneh African Grey babies. They were looking a little thin to my knowledge of raising handfed babies. My heart speaks louder then my head, and by default my heart always wins over that voice that tells me different. I brought my new 3 Timneh AFrican Grey bundles of love home. I quarentined them,just like I was supposed too, I washed my hands after handling and changed my clothes, just like I was supposed too. Infact, I know in my heart I did everything by the book. I educated myself on Avian diseases, handling, raising ,caring for parrots long before my first born ever came home.
I was going to be the best parront in the world. It was my destiny, it was pride and Joy and I gladly sacraficed much of my personal life to make sure of it.
After proper Quarentine time, our new 3 bundles joined the rest of our feathered children in what we affectionately and proudly called "Birdtopia". A birds playground. Our babies never where caged except to sleep at night. We bought the best foods, we cooked daily for them 2x a day. There cages and toys where spotless and they had more toys then what a human child would receive in 2 Christmas Holidays.
I handraised them, I fed them, I cleaned up after them, I cuddled them, I made sure we had our special Couch time every night without fail. I would line my babies up for a handfeeding way past weaning stages, simply because it was "our time" and they even told me when that time was by saying human words. When they where sick, injured, ill, depressed or just wanted extra time, I was there for them, always. The games we played.
Our lives were perfect. Just perfect. It appeared depression was no longer something I suffered from. I was happy, and they were happy.
All was well, the birds where chirping, the sun was shinning, flowers were blooming, but little did we know our lives were about to change on that fateful morning of September 7, 2002.......
