 One
beautiful day around March 17, 1986, Lumpy was hatched into her native land somewhere in
South America. Shortly after that she was captured and arrived in Olympia, Washington to
be sold as a "wild-caught import baby" to my Ex-SO. He gave her to me in hopes
of getting out of a debt he owed me... it worked. I received a Treasure and nearly 13
years of joy in Lumpy. I spent several months patiently repeating "Hi Lumpy!"
and "Hello!" to try and teach her to talk..... so naturally her first words were
"BAD Bird!!" and she delighted in shouting it out to my other birds. She never
did pick up more than about 10 different words and phrases, but she always laughed... MY
laugh. Lumpy bonded very tightly to me; over-bonded, actually. In her younger years her
cage door was always left open and she could walk wherever she wanted... I did keep her
wings clipped. One day when she was about a year old she stole a couple drinking
straws.... the long skinny "bar drink" or "latte" kind... off the
kitchen table and took them to her cage. She wove them into the bars. I got the hint
quickly and from that day forward I saved every straw and brought it home for her.
Eventually I just went to the Bar Supply store and bought boxes of 500 straws at a time.Lumpy's greatest passion in life was turning her home into her nest... and such a creative, colorful one it is!! It is built of plastic drinking straws of every color, HUNDREDS of them, with dozens of Quaker feathers intertwined. Three favorite toys are woven into the walls too. She and her Masterpiece are on display at Jon-Mark's Quakerville website... July 19, 1997 I arrived home with my unweaned baby Quaker, Rascal... he and Lumpy met 3 months later after quarantine time expired. They grew to be great companions, as long as they were 4 feet apart from each other. His presence helped pull her out of her nesting obsession. On Sunday, February 14, 1999, Lumpy became sick. We took her to the emergency clinic, but a half hour after our arrival, she made her final flight out of this world. We mourn.... Vicki and Rascal |