Wet Paint and the Runaway Cockatiel!

Home and totally on the mend!  Thank you, one and all, for your outpouring of well-wishes and concern!  Last day of antibiotics and I am back onto solid foods but drinking lots of water and taking all of your great advice on kidney wellness!!

Doug still has the plein air bug, however, and has been getting up at the crack of dawn to go paint!  (ahhhh, that phrase reminds me of my dad who used that often growing up as my mother's name was Dawn!  He was such a kidder!  "I wake up at the crack of Dawn EVERY morning" he would say!)  Monday morning he went out to Farr West and painted this beautiful little piece:

"Storage"
8 x 10

Ah - I can just smell that hay!  Heading out in that area, it reminded me of a story I forgot to tell you!  Doug has a cockatiel named Nigel who is a "studio bird" and keeps Doug company throughout the day.  He comes and hangs out while Doug paints and occasionally thinks it's fun to "fluff" his feathers in paint!  Anyway, a few weeks before we left for Door County, I got a frantic call from Doug one evening just before he was heading to come home.  Nigel had responded to Doug's whistle in the kitchen and had flown out to see him.  But instead of landing on Doug's finger, which he usually did, he flew right past him and through the next room, out the open door to the wood shop and out THAT open door to the wide open world!!  What???  Doug frantically followed him out and tried to "whistle" him down, but he circled him two or three times 100 feet in the air before he flew up over the trees and headed west.

We walked several blocks west and whistled everywhere (I'm sure everyone was thinking we were seriously crazy) but to no avail.  We had a few cockatiels whistle back at us in their own cages but no Nigel was to be found.  It was a sad day and we came home with our heads down and looked somber as we stared at Nigel's empty cage.  Doug was pretty distraught and Wesley put it on our local "KSL Classified Ads" that we had lost our bird with his picture but to no avail.

About a week later, on a Saturday morning, Doug and I had just gotten back from a Saturday morning errands run, Wesley came and said he had something to show us.  He brought us over to his car and opened the door.  I thought, "ahh, Wesley has gotten his Dad a new bird."  Sure enough, inside the door was a cage and inside the cage was a bird, and wow, this bird also had paint on his feathers!  Just.  Like. OH MY GOSH, YOU FOUND NIGEL!!

Someone had called Wesley and said "Wesley, we think we have found your bird.  He has paint on his feathers!"  He had been found in Hooper, a town about 5 miles west of Sunset, clear down by the Great Salt Lake!  Their kids thought he had marker on his tail feathers!  Wesley said, "nope, it's paint!"

Nigel - happy to be back!

We were so happy to have him back and he is getting his "whistle" back.  He does a "mocking" whistle  that sounds like "pretty bird" and also does the "WOOT WOOT" wolf whistle that he likes to whistle WITH you.  Doug has built him a perch near his easel and he also has a cool cage in Doug's painting area that has some awesome sticks and some "steps" that he uses for exercise!  haha  No more vacation time for you, big guy!!

So anyway, back to Doug's plein air bug.  He had it again this morning so here's what we got to enjoy today!!  Doug headed to Huntsville where he painted Fox Point.  Call me if you think either of these or both of these paintings would look fabulous on your wall as they're looking for a good home!!

"Fox Point"
8 x 10

Have a great evening!  Hey, we reached 50,000 hits on my blog!  Thank you thank you!!  You keep hitting, Doug will keep painting and I'll keep writing!  

Cheers!!  

J'net