After years of trading plants and seed via postal routes, I have finally considered trading internationally. Not to say I have never done it, well yes I have never done it legally. Out of ignorance I did send some cuttings over seas once. but now I am considering doing it legally. I know Australia is really stuffy about their flora and fauna coming in and out, that is why parrots are so expensive here and shot over there. I think importation should not be so hard to do that it means a depression or over flow on either side. Let's face it, cockatoos are pests and shot by farmers in Australia. Over here they are kept as pets. Why not allow the supply meet the demand? PETA and CITES have really gone overboard on the control of importing. However I am not shipping birds, but a few seeds to a fellow gardener in Australia, who I know beyond a doubt will not be planting them out in the wild, nor will they ever see the outside of a pot.
While on or side of the pond, many pelt bearing animals are being starved because there is no demand for the fur. They are over populating then maraud farms for their chickens and other livestock. I remember the bear we had in our back woods, he ate over $300 worth of chicken dinner before we could get the phone number from animal regs for the county trapper, it took two days for the trapper to finally catch the bear. He could not be relocated, so was killed a few feet from my back door. The poor thing had a broken jaw and was 150 pounds under weight. Now that is cruelty to let animals get that skinny, even wild animals. While I understand he had a broken jaw and couldn't hunt, Why was he somewhere where a car could hit him, because it would have taken a really hard impact to break a bear's jaw. He would have had to be looking for food.
What about the mountain lion in the creek? He is also skinny, so skinny that I won't let my children walk down there unless they are in a large group and with an adult. Or the one which was walking through San Luis Obispo, our county seat, a few months ago. It wasn't doing anything, just walking around, but it got some buck shot between the eyes for just trying to find some food. That is cruelty. Fur bearing animals are no longer hunted, and now are facing many diseases, like mange, and rabies. This is all done in the name of humane treatment of animals. It is ignorance pure and simple. These animals need to be put down if they are obvious not healthy. They need to be put down if their food supply isn't meeting the demands of the species. This is for the better of the whole species. We could always send the pelts to other countries which are going to be freezing come winter because they have lost their homes in earthquakes fires and tornados.
It's well known the smaller the area an animal lives in, eventually through the generations the animals get smaller. Look at Shetland ponies, and the pygmy elephants of Borneo. They probably got stranded on their islands and instead of starving, bred themselves into smaller animals. This is also true of animals in larger areas, they get bigger. Reptiles are an excellent example, they continue to grow all their life. I have a feeling that Noah only needed one kind of cat and one kind of dog to take along on his boat, selective breeding did the rest. In some cases it doesn't have to be generations. Look at gold fish, a gold fish in a bowl will always stay the size it can safely be in such a small space, but you put the fish in a large pond and it is the size of a nice koi in no time. It doesn't take a degree to figure this out.
We see the same kinds of adaptation in humans, fairer skinned people are from areas where there is less light, darker skinned people from more sunny and hot areas. The needs of the community was adapted in the genetics of the whole. A fair skinned person will either get darker or die of heat stroke in Africa, while a darker skinned person will turn pale in a more northern area. There is no difference in what makes us human. Who cares about skin color, though except maybe Darwin who said that black people were more primitive examples of humanity. This smacks as bigotry. But then he was trying miserably to prove a case he had no proof of, of which he later recanted. It is still being taught as fact, no longer a theory, but fact! We are all human and have been human since the beginning of the world, or at least six days from the beginning of the world, but that's another argument.
Anyway, off the rabbit trail. I am also trying to legally import some aloes from South Africa. Never mind that these seedlings have never been in habitat, nor their parents for that matter, I still need a book's worth of paperwork to import them and about $200 in fees. No wonder so many people say forget about the papers and send plants illegally anyway. It's not like I'm asking for the whole population of one kind of aloe. I just want a few plants. Each plant is going to end up costing me about $20 each, for seedlings no matter! I'll never be able to make that money back, unless I can find some super cheap, super good fertilizer which causes them to grow by leaps and bounds without causing mutations.
So I ask, is thinning of the population of one species beneficial to the colony as a whole? Yes it is! That is the only logical answer. PETA and CITES need to take a number in the line that gives out common sense and accommodate. That's all I have to say.
International Plant Trading
Doves & Cats
As you all know, I have cats, and I have doves. I have lost a few doves, but last night, I lost a dove to a cat. Fred our orange tabby had his paw caught in the cage, DH didn't think anything of it since the birds were alive. He didn't tell me about Fred's misshap. When we went out to do the evening feeding, one of the doves was missing half his beak and an eye. DH had to put the poor thing down. It was my last silky dove. Poor thing, I feel aweful now.
Colors Shown Could Be An Ugly Thing
Well, I'm unemployed again, and I praise the Lord for making it so before we moved. About 6 weeks ago we were contacted by DH's birth uncle, and it turns out that my husband is in fact Jewish, by birth, which once the blood work is done we could move to Israel. What were we going to do about the job we hired on as managers for a 7 year contract? Well The Lord took care of it. The bird lady started getting ugly and showing what she really was, so I started to have second thoughts. First she told me that I wouldn't be able to keep any sort of kosher, we had already decided to nill the pork and shellfish by then, so it was getting easier. Then she started to take parental liberties with my children she had no business butting into, and the last straw was when she lied to her lawyer to try and get her property manager's real estate licence. After that I knew we'd made a mistake by telling her we'd move out with her.
About three weeks or so ago, I prayed that if we were doing the wrong thing by moving with the bird lady, that the Lord stop it immediately. It wasn't half an hour later that my husband, daughter, and I were walking home in the dead of night. It's been three weeks and still she has over $1500 in wages and stuff that belongs to our family. I guess that's a small price to pay for being liberated from bondage. DH has told me to cut all ties with her so she has no reason to complain about us, well theoretically at least.
Anyway, I did get a few things out of the job. I got some doves, but Caesar, even though Cody worked his tail off to earn the bird, is not to be found in our home. The guinea pig had babies, so now we have 4 of them and the rabbits are still healthy, all are living in my plant room for the moment until I can build a coop for the doves and move the other animals to hutches. The cats are enjoying watching them and knocking down my plants in the process. We even have some strange cats hanging around, ugh!
I did get enough money to buy some beautiful plants from Grow, of which I am going to share with you all. (see below) I got a great deal on these plants, and I thank Nick for giving them to me. The crown jewel of the lot was a 5 ft Hoya obovata which cost me all of $38 with 15% off. I also got some huge epiphyllums and some other hoyas and a dischidia and a xero-something which is related to a cucumber. Maybe we should have saved our money, but it was great being able to buy things I'd not been able to in a long time.
Now to the exciting part, We got to meet my husband's birth father and some of his family. We also went to Magic Mountain and I got to go to the ESA meeting which was fun. I met people like Pat Dobbins of Epies by Pat and Mark Piette, of Epigalleria. I also met MR Beardsley, the curator of the Pentico Collection, the largest collection of Epiphyllum in the nation. I also came home with beau coup cuttings and plants from the meeting. I wish I could have visited some nurseries while in LA and SD, but it didn't work, neither did I get to meet any of my Garden Forums friends which I have been corresponding with for ages. I hope next time it will be less of a rushed trip, and we will be able to go more places while visiting with our newly found family.
Well that's what has been happening around here. We are excited to find out finally that DH is Jewish, and also grateful that the Lord stepped in and intervened in our behalf.
So here goes folks some pictures of my finds at Grow:
And a picture of a lovely I got from the ESA meeting.
A New Beginning?
A couple weeks ago I started a job. So my postings will be a bit less frequent. I am now the caretaker of about 60 parrots of various sizes. Form umbrella cockatoos to militarily macaws to Rosey Bourkes and even button quail. I started this job because I have had experience with birds from working in a pet store.
A co-worker of my husband's rented a room form the lady with the parrots, and things went from there. DH started teaching her about computers and she was looking for someone to replace her old worker. I began about two weeks ago. We have since inherited a double yellow head Amazon named Caesar. This bird bonded with my 15 year old son and all he can do is call for him. DS is the only person who can handle this bird now. Caesar has a mistrust for women. When he had babies in the nest and a mate he cared for his previous owner decided to bring him back home. She got attacked by Caesar and she tried to have him euthanized. My boss served her with papers and took Caesar. I don't know what we'll do with an Amazon parrot, but it will be a learning experience for all of us.
I have also bought the most beautiful pair of white ring neck doves. They are now in her bird room with the Rosey Bourkes. Mr. Rosey is not happy at all with his house guests. I am going to be buying some more doves soon, since she wants some quick sales. She wants to keep half the flock and split the profits. I am hoping she can find me some nice green cheek/maroon bellied conures. The have been my favorite since I tried to buy one when I worked for the pet shop in Knoxville.
Yesterday, some button quail hatched and they now think my daughter is their mom, she has 4 baby quail that call to her continually. I'll be having my own aviary soon, it looks like, with quail and doves and even a mean as snot double yellow headed amazon named Caesar.
She will be moving to California Valley next month. She wants our family to move out there with her to take care of her animals and fruit trees and other things like asparagus plants. I will have to read up on small farming again. We will have rabbits and goats and guinea pigs also along with the birds. There is a bird mart on September 30th so maybe we can see if there is anything new to buy for the birds.
Yesterday I picked up a pair of blue and gold macaws, one of them got out of it's carry case while i was driving. As long as I was moving he was fine, but as soon as I stopped, he'd come towards me. Since I was on a windey back road I could not get any reception on my cell phone, so I drove the whole 15 miles back at a crawl. We made it and finally got them in their new home. The hen was almost completely bald from plucking herself. We hope to rehab her enough to work with her.
Some of the birds are nuts. Merlin, a sulfur crested cockatoo, gets in all sorts of trouble. He tries to liberate all the other birds. Lady another cockatoo, umbrella, is also nuts, she burried herself in my shirt yesterday and would not come out for about 20 minutes. Then there is Zambee an African grey which tattles on Merlin all the time, she also does all sorts of phone rings and alarms. She used to be owned by a fire station, so she has all the language to go with it also.
Well, that's my new job, I will post pictures of Caesar when I have time. He is my favorite of the birds, even though he bit the snot out of me, it just now healed enough to stop bleeding when I'm washing dishes. I can't post pics of the others, since they aren't mine, but take my word they are very beautiful birds and intelligent also.
