A Lesson In Trust or Morning Has Broken the Pin Feathers!

Good morning!  Am I exaggerating?  Not one iota, my friends!

The day started off as usual; kissed Rob goodbye and uncovered Daisy's cage.  I got my coffee, revved up the laptop and opened Daisy's door.  I head to Facebook and I hear a sleepy 'Peeeeer.'  I look over and see her yawn.  She scratches her head and proceeds to then hop out of her cage to come and greet me.  She takes a short flight over to the arm of my recliner.

"Good Morning, Birdie Lou~Who!" Okay... first I should explain. I call her that.   I don't know why.  Why is it that we think so hard for the perfect name for our children; both human and otherwise, and yet after all of that careful weighing of family tradition, and the way the names sound, and even if they fit the individual that by the time they are a few months old, we call them something else?  I feel another blog coming on! Anyway I'm rambling, once again...  back to the subject.

She then does her usual;  She hops down onto the keyboard of my laptop.  I read through the 300+ new postings on Facebook and sip my delicious Kona Extra Bold coffee. She starts nibbling at my nails.  I pull them away, telling her,

"No, my Darling, you can't do that as Momma just did them... maybe tomorrow..." Yes, I still reason with her. I swear she understands me, though.  She stops and kind of just sits there.  She is still very close to my index finger.  I have to be very careful when she is on my keyboard.   There have been a few instances of me typing away and then "BWAAAAAAAAK!" I have typed on her tiny toe! And with nails like mine, that HURTS!  So, I begin to ease up on my WPM, and kind of slide her out of my way.  She's not having that. Back she comes, and sits by my index finger.  I stop typing.  I watch her. Her little head fluffs up.  Aha.  She wants me to scratch her head.  I begin and suddenly her head goes almost limp.  I pull it away. She straightens up, but then quickly fluffs up again.  I repeat scratching her, but soon she inches closer into my hand and literally puts the top of her head against my fingers.  I had read years ago that some keet owners are actually allowed by their birdies to massage the pin feathers and remove the hard shells.  I tried this, ever so gently.  She let me do it and she relaxed even more, so I began doing it with a bit more gusto.  This is huge, folks;  She 'asked me' to help her!

Daisy allowing me to 'roll' the pin feathers so they'll break. (for a closer look, just click on the photos!)

Outer shells of her pin fathers scattered on my laptop.

Soon I had this in my hand: Those are the outer shells of her brand-new feathers! I could not believe she was allowing me to do this. I decided to stop to see what she would do; she did nothing, although she did look at me as if to say, "You ARE going to continue, right?" Sure enough, slowly she began walking back into my hand. I began again. I put these pin feathers between my thumb and fingers and would 'roll' them, causing the hard, brittle shells of the pins to crack and split. Her head totally relaxed. I think she even sighed a few times. I tried to photograph her as I did this... it's not easy when your camera is a huge Nikon DSLR, but I got these:

"A little more to the right..."

I did this for about ten minutes; scratching and rolling.    I looked and saw that none of those ugly, itchy pins were left! WOW. Suddenly, Daisy shook her head (normal shaking...she does it all the time), and then started with the scratching. I know it still itched and I know that a bunch of leftover pin husks were all over her little head and sure enough, off they flew as she wildly scratched!

More pin shells flying!

Those two circles show where the pin feather were... and where the new yellow feathers are!  Gone are the baby 'black bar' feathers! 

You can see the brand-newborn yellow feathers atop her head;  they are bright yellow!  Here, she is scratching again!

She scratched and scratched... and scratched some more. With one final shake, she was satisfied. She fluffed up her head as if to check to see if those annoying pin feathers were really and truly gone. She relaxed her head and then a perfect wolf-call whistle. Darn tootin! You are beautiful!

Throughout this entire process, I was again so amazed with this bird. I'm not lying when I say that she truly amazes and surprises me, every single day. I found it so ... sweet? Is that the correct word? No. It sounds silly (why do I feel I need to say that about taking about my birdie all the time), but I felt so honored. She trusted me enough to, in her own birdie way, ask me to help her. She trusted me to manipulate her so that I could help her. That's big, folks. I truly feel loved by her. And it's not silly, damnit. I love her too.

As I went into the kitchen to make another cuppa, she started what I call her 'Toddler Whine" The "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" squawk. I knew immediately what she wanted. I got out the eggs and made us breakfast. She can tell what's coming by the sounds of my whipping the eggs up. She sings happily. Here she is with her favorite meal of the day:

The "Which came first" riddle is SO not breakfast conversation!

As I type, she is still on my keyboard, away from my tapping nails, and sound asleep. It's so nice to know that I am trusted and that I am her friend. It's an honor; being welcomed into her flock.

As promised, I will post photos of her bathing, as now it is truly necessary. Until then;

Keep rufflin' those feathers!

Peace.