It’s all on me. I know I haven’t been doing much this summer on this site, but social media accounts have been semi-active. Everything has been so much to process, and continued to amaze me about how many curves life can throw at you.

A month after Murphy was put down for her heart condition, I donated her things, tried to get on with life, and then an extremely exuberant friend of mine died in an accident. He was 45. I’d known him for about 19 years, along with his wife, and I met their son when the was 4 years old. Now, their child is 11, the wife has impaired vision, and everything hit the fan. We were working together on this new project for about a month before the funeral actually took place – Taking care of each other.

Then back to my responsibilities at home, and to this brand. We have all the canned samples that Dr. Elsey’s would send me over their Cleanprotein, and so far that’s going well. I need to write a new update for you on Basepaws genetic testing for cats.

And then there was Idris. Idris is a lovely bird. She’s been very human happy every since I met her when she was a few months old and brought her home. She fit into the flock okay, considering that Koi and Jak were bonded. Then she hit 7 this year, and her hormones ruined her groove. She tried to kill Koi and take Jak for herself. We did all the separations, reintroductions, adjusted the lighting periods, moved all their items around. Jak ended up with an injury that couldn’t be explained with forensics because we never found any. After Jak’s isolation period, Koi asked that Idris not sleep with them at night any longer, and then Idris was moved to a guinea pig cage at night. She kept coming onto Jak, so I had to focus her attention on me. Idris eventually tried to bond to me, but then the other two were upset because they felt I was part of their flock as well. Before Idris bonded too much to me, that it would really mess her up to be rehomed at a later point, she was rehomed this week. I have heard so many times about birds hitting hormonal age and then being put into another home and it ruins them. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s still a fantastic girl. It didn’t fit the dynamic any longer and treatment wasn’t fair to her. All my photos with my conures were basically her… just her. She’s my cuddle bug.

Idris has been doing well, from what her new mommy has told me. She has a daddy, too. Still very happy to be with her humans. They did tell me that if Idris still wanted to get a bird of her own, that would be an option they would pursue for her. She’s doing well, and it breaks my heart. I tried to make it work, and I firmly believe in Forever Homes. I did this weird little dance of working to balance everything and pulling back when Idris needed to be with me at times. When her mom came to visit, I didn’t handle Iddy. I opened the cage and let her come out, and let her new mom do all the introductions. I did not want to have Idris be too stubborn hanging on me, and be a jerk hole to someone that wanted to hang with her. It’s been hard on us.

I cleaned the bird cage from top to bottom yesterday, and got permission from my partner to order a tree for Jak and Koi. We have a table top Java stand, but when I move it around, cats surprise them. By the way, Idris hated cats, and her parents have no cats! Whew.
Jak and Koi’s tree should be here this week and is about 5 foot tall without any lower branches, has a tray area underneath for mess, and casters to roll it around. My partner says they are expensive, and I said “Will you let me handle it? I need to do this. Otherwise our house is going to be full of guinea pigs again”.

I might have a permanent Empty Nest issue that’s been following me around since I was in my 20s. Instead of helping more animals, I need to help myself to learn to invest more into keeping the fids I have happy and healthy.