Rio is Home!

And I am in love! <3 <3 <3 He is super sweet and smart. He already flies to me when I call him (and often when I don't, lol). He follows me around the house and lands on my head. When we first brought him home, he wasn't quite ready to come out of his cage. He hissed at me and gently grabbed my finger, so I let him come out on his own. From that point, he just flew between my and Dan's head. It did not take him long to feel comfortable with us. I did not introduce him to Bubo until yesterday, and it did not go well. Bu just wants to bite him. I have been keeping them separated because Bu will not leave him alone. He is the most high-strung bird I have ever had. In the five months I've had him, I have never felt love toward him. In fact, he has made me cry more often than given me feelings of affection. I hoped that Rio would give him the companionship he was missing and mellow him out, but I do not think it is going to happen. I know these things can take time, but Bu's personality is what it is, and I realized just how bad he is after bringing Rio home. Dan suggested that we give him to someone who wants a breeder bird, and Dan is always one to give the benefit of the doubt. Sadly it is something that I am seriously considering, and I do not take decisions like this lightly. I love birds with everything in me, but Bubo is just a really bad biter and he rarely just settles in without using his beak to inflict pain. We call him Dracula. I have three days off work, so I am praying that a miracle will occur. If not, then I will start looking for a new home for him.

In other news, we took the new camper out last weekend. Everything went pretty smoothly, which was very good for Dan because he needed to build some confidence. The truck pulls it really nicely, and I think it will be pretty easy to travel with it.

There are lots of windows for the birds to look out of. We are planning to convert the sofa into a bird cage area eventually. We are going on another short camping trip this upcoming weekend; it will be Rio's first camping trip. He seems pretty laid back, so I am hopeful that the new environment won't rattle him too much.

Rio Update

I got new baby pictures tonight. Rio is ready to come home, but we have to wait for the weather to cool down a bit. The airlines won't ship when the temperature is above 85°, and we have been really hot for the past week. We are sitting under a heat ridge at the moment. I was planning for a week from this Friday anyway, so hopefully by then we will be back to normal temperatures.

Out With the Old

I talked to Rio's breeder on Friday and she said he probably won't be ready to come home for two and a half more weeks, so around June 7^th. That is actually perfect, because Dan is going out of town on the 9^th, so I took the 10^th through the 12^th off work. I will have five entire days to bond with him.

We picked up our camper on Tuesday afternoon and it was quite an adventure. We got to the storage lot and after Dan got parked, he had trouble getting the jacks to lower on one side. After a call to the guy who sold us our camper, we got it figured out and everything worked out. Dan said the truck did fine pulling it, but he was a bit concerned about going any great distance because we do not have a large safety cushion on the weight our truck can pull. The experts recommend pulling several thousand pounds below capacity, and we were too close for comfort. I started looking at other trucks, but there were not a lot of adequate trucks around. Dan found one that he thought would work, so Friday after I got off work we went to a Dodge dealership and talked to a sales guy. We told him our situation and he recommended a truck with a different transmission that was capable of pulling over 20,000 pounds. He then asked us about what exactly we were looking for regarding amenities, and after we told him what we would like to have, he recommended a Ram 3500 with at least the Longhorn package, which is nice but not quite as nice as the one he showed us and let Dan test drive, which was a Laramie. I would have been ok with the less expensive Longhorn, but Dan really liked the Laramie, which has heated and cooled leather seats, dual comfort controls, and a nice navigation and stereo system.

After we decided we wanted that particular trim package, we sat down to crunch numbers, which is always so much fun. They gave us a trade-in estimate for the F 350 and it was way better than we were expecting, so we said that we were ready to have them look for a truck that worked. He asked what color we wanted and we said we weren't too particular but I told him I'm partial to red. They found two red ones and one was in Louisiana, so they went to pick it up and today we picked it up from the dealership.

I also got new pictures of Rio tonight. He is starting to look so grown up. Just a couple more weeks. :)

Resurrecting this Blog

It has been a really long time since I posted here last. I decided to resurrect this blog because I am contemplating giving up my other blog to eliminate the cost of hosting and keeping a domain. I just don't post as often as I used to, and I feel like I am wasting money to keep it at this point. I will miss looking back, but starting fresh isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, where to begin...This has been an overall crappy year. I lost my two babies and have been heartbroken for months. My "replacement" bird is no Jasper and he brings me little joy most of the time. I know he is just a baby and will likely change over time, but right now it is hard to have a baby that looks so much like Jasper but acts nothing at all like him. I am sad to say that at times I regret getting him. I should have taken my time and considered other options rather than buying one that looks exactly like Jasper, but there is no going back now. In about three weeks I will be bringing a new baby home. It wasn't really my plan; I intended to let Bubo be an only child, but he really needs a companion. I think it's part of the reason he is acting so naughty right now.

Rio is eight weeks old today and his breeder sent me a new picture of him yesterday. Directly below are a couple of pics of him on April 19^th, and below that is the picture from yesterday.

I pray that he is the bird my heart needs to heal. I had high hopes for Bubo, but he is definitely more green cheek conure-like than Jasper was. I wish I could stop missing that little stinker so much. The longer Avery is gone, the more I miss him, too. He was much more standoffish that Jasper was, but he loved me and I loved him a lot.

In other news, we closed on our new 5^th wheel camper yesterday. The dealership still has a few things to do to get it ready for us, so we will likely pick it up on Monday or Tuesday. I scheduled our maiden voyage for the weekend of June 14 through the 16th. Rio should be home by then and hopefully he'll be settled in and comfortable. He and Bu will likely grow up traveling quite a bit, so camping should not be stressful for them. I am looking forward to making some good memories and turning this crappy year around.