Gold double headed ceremonial staff

Hello everyone. How are you today? I didn't feel well enough to work today, so I decided to take a rest. I think I may have got flu. When I woke up, all parts ached including my head. But our beloved parrots were shouting for the second course of breakfast from a next room, so I had no choice but to get up and give them parrot bread baked loving by Mike. Scooter, Timneh Grey, shouts like 'Are you ok? It's dark! Are you ok?' and on and on. Beaper, another Timneh Grey, whistles a tune or two. They were loud and insistent. Once I got up, I felt as if I were an old tin man! All parts need drops of oil!

After a while, I felt better, so I was able to use my PC for pleasure; browsing Etsy and reading other people's blogs. Such fun! I used to spend many hours looking at photos of art blogs I randomly found. It is a bit like discovering a hidden boutique on a narrow street.  

Yesterday I went to the post office, the bank and my duty dog walks in light rain despite having a slight fever. This was the last straw, I guess. I have rested very well today. So I hope I will go back to work tomorrow. I start at 8:30. Also, I have all responsibility on my shoulders tomorrow. Mike is going to a training course for the kiln. He won the training at a pottery supply company whom we got a kiln from. The travel expense is also being paid for. It is a long trip, three hours by train. He is excited! So am I. This is the first time he has won something since we met. I hope he will learn lots and enjoy the day tomorrow.

Today I will share you with ceremonial staff I made. Between dark clouds with heavy rain there were sunny patches. I took some photos of my ceramics. One day I had desire to make the ceremonial staff kings and queens hold on their thrones. My desire was so intense that I couldn't resist, otherwise I thought I would be mad.  I have already showed you one of them, and this is the other one.  I used yellow glaze, and on top of it decorated with gold enamel. It has very good effects. The gold colour looks rich and gorgeous as I wanted. In an ideal world, I wanted to mount little gem stones in each dents I made on the swirl. But I had to compromise with red (ruby), blue (sapphire) and green (emerald) enamels. Painting them was very difficult because the enamel tried to run down before it had hardened. Three coats were needed to make them relatively flat surfaces. This really took lots of my time and effort, but I feel it was all worth it. There is nothing like this in the whole world, and I like to hold it    

Lion side has a red cabochon.

Side view

 

Sheep side

I have listed this work on Etsy today. Don't miss your chance to hold it in your hand in a royal manner!

Sleep deprivation and our bird family photos

Last night, I was struggled to fall into sleep again. Finally about midnight, when I started feeling dozy, Fifi the Patagonian conure thought it would be a good idea to start a party in the dark.She started banging a bell and squeaked several times. Sigh. Our two Greys have never done this. They are quiet during nights.

Fifi, Patagonian conure. Party lover.

We were woken up about three in the morning again. Topaz whined. She has bad tummy. I assume it is caused by one of her favourite food, cooked potatoes. Yes, simple microwaved potatoes. When we stopped her giving her potatoes, she got better. So we resumed offering some, she started having a trouble again. Poor girl usually never ask to go out during nights. She is very clean in the house. One of her a few good points (another is her high intelligence). Once she clears potatoes from her system, she will probably recover. If not, we will take her to the vet. I even took a photo of her stool, thinking it might be any aid of diagnosis when we take her to the vet.  

Musical and Mechanical, Beaper

I have had the lack of good night sleep for 10 days. My head is heavy and I can't concentrate enough to read reports today. Also Topaz wants to go to the garden every hour or so. So I gave up. This is a good and a bad of point of working for myself. I don't need anyone's permission to take a day off, but I also have none to back up my work. Luckily it has been a quiet day. Taking a nap is not an easy thing to do in our house. We have three parrots. Scooter talks loudly a lot, Beaper whistles and sings very loud, and Fifi screams and bangs her metal dishes. They do these at the same time, and thier room is next to our bedroom. Nobody could sleep.

Scooter (top) and Beaper

Yesterday I found Japanese African Timneh Grey owner on Twitter and got in contact with her. We had out first parrot-like birds in 1998. There was nobody who kept parrots, whom I knew in Japan, then. Besides not so many people was connected to Internet then. Most information I gatherd was from US at that time. They were well ahed of the world. The world really changed so fast and so much.

Scooter

Recently I was contacted by a nice Russian bird lover. She asked if I could giveher a permission to translate my articled on Kakariki into Russian. Of course, I gave her a permission. It has been already translated into Polish a long time ago. I started the website to help Kakariki in captivity. If even one kakariki has benefit from my old website, I am just happy.

I hope we have uninterrupted sleep tonight. Topaz has been ok for last couple of hours. Fingers crossed!