Beaker RIP

Cloudcover at twilight

After Jake and I got back from our morning walk, I uncovered the birds, and Beaker, our 34-year-old Gold Cap Conure, was dead on the bottom of his cage. He had lived many years beyond his species’ average lifespan. He got everything he could out of life, enjoying coffee and toast in the mornings (he really loved pancakes when we made them). He wanted us to share everything we ate, and we did. He especially loved pasta, eggs, and most any meat. He was a real taskmaster, having us wait on him hand and foot, ringing his bell for service, and always letting us know what he wanted. We are really going to miss him.

Laurie took these three photos of Beaker in February after listening to Bad Bunny’s song, “DTMF.” He sings about how he should have taken more photos and appreciated the time they had together… The lyrics that inspired Laurie to photograph all the animals that day are:

“Vamo’ a disfrutar, que nunca se sabe si nos queda poco…”

“Debí tirar más fotos de cuando te tuve
Debí darte más besos y abrazo’ las veces que pude…”

“Let’s enjoy – ’cause we never know if our time is short…”

“I should have taken more photos from when I had you
I should have given you more kisses and hugs the times I could…”

Beaker loved to take baths

We burried Beaker at sunset

Under stormy skies

Beaker’s grave

Mystery Kitty Says Hi!

Dawn

Can you find the owlette?

Sunrise

Gwendolyn

Glenda

Sliver sleeping

Cat 5

Spunk

Loki

Mystery Kitty

The mystery kitty started hanging around last summer, fighting with our cats through the wire in the catio. You can read more about that at https://wp.me/p1yQyy-cr8. He has always run away from us whenever he sees us, but Laurie noticed he’d been looking thin, so she started leaving food and water out for him. He was meowing at the Sally port door this afternoon, and our cats were not fighting with him through the wire. I walked out the door and he ran. I sat down on the step and called him. He slowly came back, sniffed me, got up on the step next to me, and let me pet him for a few seconds before he ran off again. I went back inside and in a few minutes he was meowing at the door again. I took a can of cat food out and put it in his food bowl, and he really appreciated the canned food. I sat on the step with him eating at my feet and took a few photos. He definitely looks rougher than he did when we first started seeing him last summer.

The humming bird that was buzzing aroung us while the mystery kitty was eating.

If you didn’t find the owlet in the long shot, here’s a closer view.

Sunset

Peacock Butterfly

Dawn

Sunrise

A Peacock Butterfly with a piece of its wing missing

I didn’t do it! I swear! I didn’t bite the peacock butterfly.

Eurasian Blackbird

Squirrel Nutkin again

European Robin

European Robin in silhouette

Gray Heron overhead

Atlas: “Why don’t you ever bring any of those birdies home for me, Paparazzo?”

Goldcrest

Freyja: “What about me?”

Illusive Eurasian Jay

Tree over the trail

Sunset

Bedtime

A Dundee Day

Dawn

Stretching wing at dawn

Sunrise

Synchronized seagull sleeping

Great architecture

This high school is as old as it looks.

The post office building

Museum

Grave yard bunny

Where North Sea oil rigs are decommissioned

European Starling

Starling and the Gull

Squirrel on Shey’s back fence

House Sparrow

Dunnock

Ruddy Turnstone

Eurpean Herring Gull

Gray Herron

Sunset

Back From Belgium. Gone To The Dogs!

It was raining in Geel this morning

You can’t have my cake or eat it either, Niki!

You can’t eat the Eurasian Magpie, either…

Or the Eurasian Collared-Dove…

Or the Eurasian Jackdaw..

Or the cute Common Chaffinch!

“What? Are you just going to let me starve?”

Herman took me to aother old church this morning.

There were several of these locked, grated grottoes around the outside of the church with lighted votive candles inside them.

A man driving a small utility truck filled with lighted votive candles in the back stopped and said hi to us and explained to Hermin in Flemish that his job was to keep the candles lit. He had done it for ten years and loved the job.

Nike was watching for us to return from his bed in the garage.

I got back in the late after noon, and returned the rental car. Then we went straight from Enterprise car rental to Trivia at the Irish Pub. There were a couple of Golden Retrievers that came to Trivia Night. The white one really like me, and I had to pet it most of the time. It would put it’s head in my lap when I stopped petting it.

Tristan snuck a picture of me petting the dog. We are not supposed to use phones while a trivia round is in play.

Anime

Dawn

Koi in the Japanese Garden in Kaiserslautern

Not coy

Amine in the Japanese Garden in Kaiserslautern

“I’m being coy. Can I have a Koi?”

Common Shelduck

Bar-Headed Geese

Eurasian Moorhen

Last night

The Archer

The underside of a Eurasian Green Woodpecker

“The Woodpecker is way out of my reach!”

Eurasian Blackbird

Portraits of famous dogs in an Italian restaurant in Landstuhl

“Famous dawgs in Landstuhl? Not cool! Fool!”

Moon made an appearance between rain showers this evening.

Mannheim Dampfwalze

We went Dampfwalzen (steamrolling) around Mannheim today.

We rode the train in the rain

Nextdoor to Mannheim

We went to the Techno Museum. We started on the top floor with old stuff and worked our way down to modern stuff. I’m not going in order with my photos.

A White Stork flew by with sticks in its beak

A Wankel (rotary engine) motorcycle.

One of the museum staff teching a group of high school students how to make paper

Punchcards used to program looms were the inspiration for using punchcards to program computers. I used punchcards for my COBOL programming classes in the 70s.

One of the layouts for a poster.

Tristan and I both made posters. They are still rolled up, so I will have to photograph them later. The staff member started off showing how to make lead letters that are used in printing presses. He gave Tristan the W that he made. Then he showed us how to make black ink prints.

A lith-block for making lithographs of a kitty.

A half-track motorcycle that did great wheelies, based on the photo.

Say watts?

Speaking of wheelies, the peddling paparazo wasn’t able to do a wheelie on the watt generator bike, but he hit 759.5 wattss, maybe more. His average for 90 seconds was 450 watts.

A yellow-legged gull flew overhead while we were walking to the modern art gallery.

Little Boy Blue tuned into a golden angel

The water tower on the way to the modern art gallery

Walk like an Egyptian Goose

Pinguins filled with helium move around as visitors walk around them.

An orb that lit up and slowly swirled as people approached it.

A multimedia installment with lots of movement in the darkness and loud noises

I related to this installment

ICE, ICE Baby!

Atlas: “I’m worn out from all your photos!”