A bird that’s a plant and a bird with feathers are as different from each other as daylight is from darkness.
In my last Grainews instalment, I wrote about a tropical plant commonly called Bird of Paradise. Today, another kind of bird story takes centre stage, which you can read about further along.
There’s a song that starts out: “Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, long, long ago, long time ago.” Well, once upon a time I raised canaries. Their melodious strains and trills would continue almost endlessly at times.
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It’s chicken day
This issue’s recipe: honey lemon chicken. Chicken Day means getting whole processed birds from a local farmer, getting them home in coolers, cutting each up for bagging and freezing, then stripping the carcasses for stock and pet food.
Canaries remind me of a whistler and my friend Audrey W., who did such a splendid job of canary whistling on a couple of my songs named “Schmirler the Curler” and “Canadian Weather Song.”
Here are a few words from a Bible passage that caught my eye: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”
It makes me think of a poem with these words: “When I’m an old man and live with my kids.” I hope to share that one day and yes, I do dream dreams.
This is probably one of the shortest intros I’ve ever given before the meat and potatoes of this column. That means the main course of my words.
Faithful feathered companion
What’s it like living with a parrot? If you thought something like “never a dull moment,” you wouldn’t be far wrong.
While watching live entertainment on the main stage at the Whoop and Hollar Folk Festival in Portage la Prairie, Man., this past August, I noticed a man nearby taking pictures of something perched in an ornamental tree.
I approached him shortly afterwards, and after we introduced ourselves, conversation began to flow. Almost immediately I asked about the parrot on his shoulder.
That’s how I, Ted the Singing Gardener, met Doug Kretchmer, a Winnipeg photographer, and his parrot companion named Billy the Kid at a country music folk festival.
I learned that Doug purchased Billy, his blue-fronted Amazon parrot, when the bird was two years old. He got the bird from Petland, at the former Eaton Place in Winnipeg, for the bargain price of $788 instead of $1,500. That historical event occurred 34 years ago on September 17, 1989, when Doug brought his parrot home.
Much to his surprise and perhaps delight, Doug learned in 2002, following an appointment with a veterinarian, that Billy the Kid was not a boy at all, but a girl parrot.
As a result, he changed the spelling from Billy to Billie (my notes from back then say Billy Bob became Billie Jean). The vet’s advice was to periodically trim the parrot’s wing feathers so she wouldn’t fly away, as the wild instinct will always show.
I asked Doug for some of Billie’s dietary likes, habits, peculiarities and travels. Here’s what he told me.
“Billie eats a lot of seeds, mostly sunflower and pumpkin as a main staple and husks them herself. Also, pistachios are one of her favourites. She daily gets fresh fruit such as apple, orange and banana, and likes to eat grapes as a refresher on hot weather days.”
A lot of folks think parrots can talk so I asked Doug about Billie.
“She says hello. That’s a main one, and ‘wow’ when really excited. She can be quite demanding too until her need is met,” he said.
When Doug removes the covering to her cage, Billie then goes to the top, saying “‘up, up’.” She’ll then fly from his shoulder up to the bookshelf.
Doug tells me his travels with Billie include two trips across Canada. He says he considers Billie his best buddy, having played a major part in providing comfort and healing to Doug following an accident.
Today, Doug and Billie continue to make short haul and longer visits and stops together.
Happy days
Knock, Knock! Who’s there?
Such knocks are from my memory bank, and no! It’s not Ted the Singing Gardener.
After a half dozen knocks, Bert Pearl, emcee for The Happy Gang variety show, would say: “Who’s there?” In unison, the musical group would answer: “It’s the Happy Gang.” After a short pause, Bert would respond: “Well come on in.”
Those were happy days when I listened to The Happy Gang’s daily program on CBC Radio.
They were also stress-free days, when people left their doors unlocked while tending a large garden or doing other outside duties, or walking to the corner store for a pecan cinnamon loaf and fresh-baked homestyle bread for six cents a loaf. Most everyone in the neighbourhood knew where the homeowner left a key.
There was also door-to-door delivery of fresh cream and milk in glass pints and quarts, and blocks of ice tight to the box.
Our day to remember
Taking time to recall and honour those individuals who fought for our freedom and those who continue to do so isn’t asking too much. May we never lose sight of the reason and importance for setting aside November 11 as Remembrance Day.
Here are a few words from Terry Kelly’s Remembrance Day song, “A Pittance of Time”:
Take two minutes, would you mind
It’s a pittance of time
For the boys and the girls who went over
In peace may they rest, may we never forget
Why they died.
It’s a pittance of time
Remembrance Day is commemorated in a song written by Shirley Johnson of Saskatchewan, which is in her 1994 songbook Teach Me Well. Here are some very moving works from “Let’s All Remember”:
I haven’t shot a gun, dropped bombs from off a plane,
I haven’t heard the cries or felt the cruel pain,
I haven’t sailed the seas or marched upon the land,
But as I pause awhile, I think I understand.
Brave men and women left the comforts of their home,
And went to fight a war in lands they’d never known,
They did not want to kill or hurt their fellow man,
But they obeyed the call and carried out the plan.
So let’s remember and let’s reflect
And then let’s take the time to show respect,
For those who gave their lives unselfishly
Let’s all remember the price of living free.
