Grangerland RFD
  • Home
    • Govt Contractor Caught Working
    • Testimonial for Chriopractic
    • The Rambling Cardinal II
    • Finding a name: Parkinson's Disease
    • The Great Winter Storm of 2014
    • it was a very long week
    • The Christmas Lights
    • Improving the Gene Pool 2
    • Mother's Day, on the Farm
    • A working birthday party
  • Family
    • Driving Miss Sally >
      • Texas >
        • Anahuac National Wildlife Preserve 1/3/17
        • Anahuac Birds 8/1/16
        • Birds of East Barnard
        • San Barnard Preserve
        • What is Geocache?
        • Even More Geocache
        • Geocache Log
        • 2/19/14 Geocache Log
        • Geocache , 4 June 2014
        • The Rambling Cardinal
        • Taking a break
      • Canada >
        • From Houston to Points North
        • Travels in Maine
        • Bar Harbor to Halifax
        • Peggys Cove
        • Halifax
        • Halifax to Ingonish Ferry N.S.
        • Cape Breton Eye Candy
        • More Cape Breton Eye Candy
        • Prince Edward Island
        • Sackville Waterfowl Park, New Brunswick
      • With family in Florida >
        • Melborne to Saint Augustine
        • Florida to home
    • Mom's Memories, Ruth Wilcox >
      • Early twentieth century life 1
      • Early twentieth century life 2
      • Early twentieth century life 3
      • Early twentieth century life 4
      • My memories of Mom
      • Carol's memories of Mom
      • Memories of Grandma and Grandpa
    • Galveston County Rodeo
    • The Playground
    • Amie's Love Story
    • Going to the Circus
    • The medical blizzard
    • Trebuchets for fun and games
    • Alex's trip
    • Birthday Dilemma
  • Our farm and animals
    • New Arrivals
    • Links for donkey pages
    • Donkeys and other critters >
      • Eeyore >
        • Blue - The Herd Matriarch
        • Eeyore and the sheep
        • Eeyore and the girls
        • Why we became Llama Ranchers
        • More Llama Tales
        • A donkey named Houdini
        • The Farrier Visits
        • The Homecoming
        • More cute baby pictures
        • Glad that's over
        • Where the girls are
        • How the herd does grow.
        • Feeding the Family
    • Crape Myrtles and other stuff
    • All about our goats >
      • Making a Goat Shelter
      • Bodacious
      • Setting the table
      • Funeral, on the farm
      • Never too old
      • Remodeling the Nursery
    • Tail of Two Dogs >
      • The Odd Couple
      • Bob gets a haircut
      • Security goes rogue.
      • Bob slows down a little
    • Birds >
      • Adoption, Parrot Style >
        • Living with kiwi and skittles
        • When your parrots get bored.
        • Parrots at Play
        • The Weaning
        • Who owns who?
        • Baby (Bird) Sitting
      • The turkey looking b
      • Alfalfa
      • Our 2 Knotheads
      • A New Deputy
      • Changing of the Guard
      • Egg Hunts
      • Weathervanes
      • New Landscape Crew
      • Motherhood, or something like it
      • The Muscovy Chronicles >
        • Displaced Ducklings
        • Tall Dark Stranger
        • Tall Dark Stranger starts a family (sortakinda)
        • The Extra Duckling
        • It takes a village
        • Don't mess with Mama Duck
        • Gang of Eight
        • The Natural Method
        • Determination
        • Mission Barely Possible
        • They aren't Muscoveys
        • Peep Peep
      • Our (chicken) melting pot
  • Flotsam and Jetsam
    • Join the Navy, he said
    • Submarines, Targets, and other Navy Stuff >
      • Nuke Down
      • Subs: My first boat (SS343)
      • My second boat
      • Shipwreck and survival
      • Tragedy averted, the Seawolf
      • Dizzying Change 1945-1965
      • Submarine Life or Living in a sewer pipe.
      • Navy Unit, Fort Detrick
      • My favorite shore station
      • A voice from the past
      • 2017 New Orleans
      • Connections
    • Special Education Classes Can't do that! >
      • Almost Free, our classroom Hybrid EV
    • Vehicles >
      • Hard working Wheels
      • My love affair with Nissan
      • Class Project, Art Car
      • 59 Chevy Viking School Bus
      • My first new car
      • The do whatever project
      • Hillbilly Art Car
      • Handicapped?
      • Convoys to Mexico
      • The Perfect Getaway Car
      • Warm weather cars
      • Unidentified old car
      • Just use what you have
      • RV Man Cave
      • Goodbye Old Paint
      • A girl and her truck
      • Old dog learns new tricks
      • Smorgasbord
      • Unrequitted Love, 2002 Saturn Vue
      • Going Cheap
      • Never too many trailers
      • Hillbilly Hilton, Revisited
      • Off Road Anybody? >
        • Jeep Gladiator
        • Jeep Comanche
        • Very Rare, 1951 W.O. Jeepster
        • Off Road Lincoln
        • Stasi Van spotted in Conroe
    • Chimneys 101
    • Redneck Engineering >
      • My Swan Song
      • Confessions of a Faux Farmer >
        • Handling Hay
        • Donkey or Goat Fencing Guide
        • Doing Barbed Wire Cheaply
        • The Great Escape
        • Establishing Boundaries
        • Scraping the Ditch
        • Making a Fancy Fence >
          • Finally, done with fencing >
            • Faux Farmer Fabricates Feckless Feeders
        • Rain, rain, go away >
          • If a tree falls
          • Directory of Homeless Posts
          • Starting all over (gardening)
        • Texas welcomes new lake >
          • A day at the bank (of the pond)
          • Farm ponds do not require upkeep, right?
      • Redneck Engineering, The Porch Bench
      • Redneck Engineering, the next step >
        • Making it Livable
      • More concrete
      • Very Messy Muscovies
      • Improving the Gene Pool
      • The art of hanging a gate
      • Free Lumber
    • AC and Heating 101 >
      • A few basic concepts
      • Air Conditioning Systems
      • Free Passive Cooling
      • More Basic Stuff
  • Directory of Homeless Stories
    • For I was hungry
    • Your Government at Work
    • Evolution of a Little House of Care
    • The Beginning
    • Invisiible
    • Conroe Texas 2018
    • Directory of Homeless Stories
  • Justice anyone?
  • 5 Years In

When your parrots get bored.

6/22/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
The birds were bored and they showed it by fussing with each other. When parrots fuss they are very loud and this is something that disturbs old folks that are a captive audience. Mama found a parrot gym that she figured would take some of the noise out of our lives. Once again, I said I could make it a lot cheaper than that. 

Well the truth is that it has probably cost as much as ordering one would have but there are reasons I probably like this better. It is customized for their cage and I had a lot of quality time in close proximity to the babies.

A second crisis we had was that we found our cell phone cameras were virtually loaded. We had to download or trash most of the pictures. We decided to make a slide show of the extra pictures of the babies and we will put it at the end of this blog.

Picture
If you are going to stuff rope through a pvc pipe you need a hole that is bigger than the rope. Now I think the rope was 1/2 inch but I don’t remember for sure. I know it was not synthetic. I don’t know how big a hole this makes but it’s bigger than the rope and you can go completely through the pipe. The bit is available cheap from Harbor Freight Tools which is on line. For my part of the world there is a store now open in Humble.

Picture
If you do not care for squares a chop saw is your friend. I do a lot of stuff around the house and this is my favorite saw. Cutting most (non plywood) boards it takes the place of a square, a miter box, and who knows what else. A crooked cut can ruin your whole day when you are working with pvc.

Picture
The gym we saw on line was a square with another square set at ninety degrees inside it. The problem with that is the door at the top of their cage is what they normally use when they are allowed out. As you can see there are holes drilled in the frame, ready to lace with rope. We used 1 1/2 inch pvc because of the height of the gym. I recommend no longer than 1” if you are going to set it on something and don’t need the height. These pipes are too big for their feet but they make do.

Also, because of all the angles it wasn’t square at first. I shortened the right leg and it came out much better.

Picture
You can find rope like this at any building center. When I put it through the holes, I wrapped the end in scotch tape which acted much like the tip on a shoe string. Duct tape would probably have worked better.

Picture
These guys are very territorial and took a big interest in everything I did. 

Picture
Kiwi gave it his endorsement but he really isn’t in charge. We were stuck waiting for the building inspector.

Picture
She finally decided it was ok with her too, subject to certain changes. I didn’t tell her I already planned to install horizontal ropes. She doesn’t understand engineering very well and that’s why the holes were drilled. Anyway, both she and I were happy because we were getting what we wanted.

Picture
I really don't think they trusted me very much because they kept watching everything I did. When Mama would show up with the camera they would look away. They couldn't fool me.

Picture
Not much left for the first part except making knots where the ropes intersect. You can see the T fittings at the top and bottom pipe. That is where whatever I decide to install will fit. We will just build it inside this.

Picture
This has the knots installed and a temporary swing. It is temporary because these guys are going to demolish it. That a piece of the swing that kiwi is chewing on now.

Picture
I think it ended well. They use it a lot, things are much quieter, and it was sure cheaper than buying another large cage.

The slide show below consists of a batch of pictures that we didn't use elsewhere. Some of the time they looked like buzzards they were so young. Hope you enjoy.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    When your two birds become overbearing and loud, it's time to do something.

    Archives

    June 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly