Expert advice

We had a wonderful visit from a wildlife rehabilitator and expert falconer from Atlanta, Georgia last week.  She and her husband (Debbie and Brandon) were spending a few days at Asa Wright Nature Centre (a birders paradise located 8 miles from our home).  They came to hear about Mortimer (thanks Peter O'Conner) and were delighted to come for a visit.  We were so excited to have them!

Debbie did a thorough check of Mortimer and showed us certain things to look for with regards to his craw (where his food is first stored) and his chest (where you can feel a certain bone that can indicate proper growth) and his blood feathers and his diet and his environment and so much information she shared!  Debbie says he is doing great and the set up we have here at home is ideal because our windows are unscreened and opened so when he is ready to fly he may start with perching on the window ledge and then can easily come and go as he pleases.  She also suggested to start blocking him off (with a towel or something) whenever we bring food so he can stop the association of humans as a food provider.  And she said to start putting food in one designated place for him so that he can always know to come back there for food (which was different from what we have heard before that the first time he flies out we may have to bring food to him wherever he is).... Time shall tell with that one.  But his eyes are clear and his feathers are growing beautifully and he is preening and eating and stretching and flapping so we got an A on bird parenthood thus far :)!!  

We also learned about slicing and casting.....no, these are not just golf and fishing terms.  Slicing is how falconers refer to a bird pooping and casting is the important event of regurgitating a pellet of indigestible material.  We have not noticed the casting process as yet so it's something to look out for as it also helps to clean out his tracts and help him stay healthy.

It was such a special treat to have these knowledgeable visitors and to hear of all the work they have done in rehabbing thousands of birds and animals.  Debbie currently is part of a medieval dinner experience and works as the king's falconer to soar her falcon over the heads of diners and give them a swooping, diving and catching show at which to ooh and aah!!  The chance to earn money of course peaked Kahlil's interest and he is still hoping we can keep Mortimer as he loves the thought of walking around with a hawk on his shoulder.  We have heard of a falconer in Tobago and we hope to spend a day with him to get some more first hand experience of what it is really like to have a full grown bird of prey in your care.  I myself will be happy to see Mortimer survive on his own but oh how I would love for him to come back and visit our yard every once in a while!

Many thanks to Debbie and Brandon for their visit with us!

Growth on steroids

Raising a baby bird is like watching growing up in fast forward.  Every day there are such big changes. Mortimer is  now stretching out his wings and starting to practice flapping them as well.  This meant he  needed another upgrade to his home and he is now in a padded container with some branches for perching.  We have only see him go up once on the branch but hope he may start to use it more.  We have also stopped feeding Mortimer by hand and now just leave the cut up meat on a small Tupperware top.  He picks at it and has figured out how to hold the bigger pieces with those taloned feet.  We have also put in several live prey - small lizards and grasshoppers - and watched as he tracks and captures and devours.  Of course we did give him the advantage by removing the wings from the grasshoppers and holding on to the lizards till he had them in his grips...as all good parents do ;)!!

A big new home

Caught that grasshopper!

Stretch and flap

We love this little guy!!

Poop Shoot

This is the name Kamala has given to Mortimer since we discovered his interesting pooping habits.  I will let Kamala explain:  "Mortimer stands up, raises his butt high and shoots the poop out.  This means the poop gets all over the sides of his box but keeps him clean. He is a grey lined hawk and all his names are Mortimer, Mort, Dylan and Poop Shoot.  Good night"  We are all pretty amazed at this ingenious method of keeping his nest clean.  Since we had no idea about this method at first we just had a few cloths around the bottom of the box he was brought to us in.  We have now upgraded him to a bigger box, lined it with a garbage bag and then lined all around with cloths which we change and wash daily.  

We all definitely feel like parents to a newborn baby around here.  Carl removed the three bot flies from the left side of his face, I am counting the poops and equating that with doing well, we are on the look out for any moving living creature that could possibly provide sustenance to Mortimer and when he threw up the other morning we all spent the day fretting if he was ok.  Kamala says we are foster parents but human foster parents to a bird.  And it seems our baby is doing well.  He is making soft tweeting noises, standing up more, growing more feathers and today he started stretching out his wings and holding pieces of meat in his talons and biting at that.  Oh yes, I am feeling those maternal instincts abounding!!

Bot fly removal.....soooooo gross!!

Wing stretch number one......

One sided wing stretch......still to capture the full wing stretch on camera......

Mortimer on day 5 with us.....so attentive and intelligent....if we do say so ourselves :)!!

A New Family Member

Wow!  It has been faaaaaaaar too long since I last visited this site and made a contribution!!  Reading past posts makes me feel sorry for all the happenings over the past few years that have not been recorded in this way. But....glad to be back and with especially exciting stories to tell!

Last week Kahlil was saying how much he wanted a falcon as a pet.  Saturday we arrived home to a young baby hawk in a box from a neighbor who found it on his land - obviously fallen from a nest but looking healthy otherwise.  The bird seems barely weeks old with a body full of downy feathers and only tiny pin feathers now starting to grow.  Together with some researchers living with us, we found a few lizards and a bunch if guppies and Mortimer (named by researcher Julian) was well fed.

Day 1 both kids were scared to feed the bird.  On Sunday morning they put a sock on their hand and were fighting over who could feed the baby and by evening the sock had been abandoned completely!  Mortimer is gentle and smart....he takes the raw meat carefully from our fingers and never picks at our hands or fingers when we are retrieving meat that has dropped close to him.  We were advised to put lots of cloth to keep him warm and feed him as varied a diet as possible.

An interesting dilemma immediately presented itself of course.  Mortimer is a carnivore.  He is a grey lined hawk which mainly eat lizards and snakes but will also eat small mammals, birds and insects.  We have a small bird nesting in a brick in our bathroom so we decided to take the baby chick to feed Mortimer.  Carl got the bird from the brick hole and the plan was to kill it.  But we saw it was infested with bot flies (google it) and Carl removed 12 from the tiny bird which of course meant we saved its life so we couldn't very well kill it now.  So back into the nest it was put and was happily fed by its mommy while we were sent to look for other prey.  Lizards are abundant around our house but not an easy catch by any means!  We were successful enough to fill Mortimer's craw and he went to sleep happy again.

Monday (day 3) was another adventure.  A large (over four feet) snake (locally called a dos cocorite) came into the bathroom to eat the same baby bird we had saved the day before.  After a few failed attempts, the snake was captured in Kahlil's net but now what.....Carl's not going to kill it, I don't want to either....are we really cut out for raising a carnivore?  Discussions ensued about killing of animals for food, the cycle of life, the fact that be hardly think about it much since any meat purchased in a store bears no resemblance to the cute creature it was when alive, etc, etc.  In the end, Kahlil said he would kill the snake and I said I would cut it up.  Big kill #1 completed (no pictures this time) and the happiest we have seen Mortimer yet!

Tomorrows topics.....all that poop!!

Ceremony

One of the most special things that happened for me over the Christmas holidays was introducing the importance of Ceremony to my kids. I do not have a great ability to remember much of my past but I remember well when I first got my period and my mother wanted to throw a party. I was mortified and managed to convince her that a small dinner would be nice and I begged her not to tell anyone else. I am not sure if my mom tried and did introduce ceremony to me before this but I was definitely not ready yet. She tried again on my 21^st birthday and this time I was much more receptive and open and willing to experience. We gathered friends and family of all ages in an intimate setting and even though I do not remember the specifics of the ceremony, I know that this is when I got hooked; this is when the significance of marking transitions really sank it and took root. Since that day I have incorporated Ceremony into many aspects of my life – some private, some public. When I was pregnant with Kahlil, instead of a traditional Baby Shower my friends and family put together a Mother Blessing Ceremony, when both our kids were born we had a Welcoming Ceremony. So whether they wanted to or not my kids have been involved with Ceremony from their inception.

Winter Solstice 2009 arrived like a normal day. While we were making breakfast I talked to Kahlil and Kamala about the significance of this day – the longest night, the shortest day, the time when we honor the dark for its gifts and celebrate the sun and its return. Mom and I had talked about doing something to honor the day but no plans were laid. Then, as we were taking or evening walk (Mom, Dad, me and the kids) I asked Kahlil and Kamala if they were going to create a ceremony to honor the dark and invite in the sun what would they do. Kamala chimed in instantly that we should have food and drinks ( a true Trinidadian!!). Kahlil said we should have candles. Mom suggested reading a poem about the dark. And thus a Ceremony was created.

While I prepared dinner, mom looked for the right poem. Kamala was sitting at the table and found a black piece of paper and started to do one of her favorite things….cut the paper. Mom had done a project with the kids earlier that week of making paper chains to decorate and hand around the house for Christmas. Kamala wanted to make another chain for her to wear around her neck. Dad helped. The paper ended up only making enough to fit on her head – it was a crown, it was all black. I told her she had made the crown of darkness and suggested to get some white paper to make a crown of light. Kahlil jumped in and the crown was created.

After dinner, we lit a candle, lit a piece of charcoal onto which we put incense Carl had harvested from the forest, and we each got a sage leaf. One at a time, we lit our leaf, blew it out and thanked the darkness for something. Then we did it again to say something we loved about the light. It was simple. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

And every subsequent day Kamala asked if we could do another ceremony. So we did – on Christmas night and on New Years Eve. I am grateful for the connection they have formed with this sacred right. I give thanks.

As I write this and see the devastation in Haiti it reminds me that Ceremony is also about the power of prayer. Haiti is in my prayers!

All good things come to an end

It all started over seven years ago….seven years and two months to be precise. It was then that my son was born and my breast feeding journey began.

It has been a beautiful, growth-filled journey and there is so much mixed emotion as I write this entry because now the journey has come to a close. Or perhaps it has just opened the next door…..Kahlil breastfed for over 3½ years. He was the type of child that would have been happy to stay connected to the breast night and day and as my instincts led me to follow his cues, he nursed any time in any place.

I was very open and willing to tandem breastfeeding when my daughter Kamala was born. I had read the books and talked with mothers about having a toddler and infant breastfeeding and I was open to the experience. Kahlil nursed all through pregnancy and was still nursing when Kamala was born.

However, mind and body are not always in sync and when Kamala was born and Kahlil went to breastfeed every inch of my body said no and he was weaned over the next few months with surprising ease considering how connected he was to the breast before. Kamala was an avid breast feeder as well.

Kahlil would ask direct “I want BREAST” but Kamala came up with her own terms “Ilk mommy” as opposed to "Milk" which came with cereal or in a cup. She too nursed almost anywhere but we have surprisingly few pictures of that. Her weaning came with its many challenges. But when it came to the point where I was really done and really not interested in more and I started putting the appropriate boundaries in place, the last transition seemed easy and it is amazing to me that now my breasts are finished with their true purpose. The milk is starting to dry and the boobs are starting to get shrinkish and saggish. And I am eternally grateful!!!

This entire journey has been a blessing and has connected me to myself, my function, my role, my purpose. I was the first of any of my friends, peers and family (cousins) to enter into the realm of motherhood and since the time of conception with Kahlil I have felt a deep, guttural connection to this world of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. This calling and our lifestyle has meant that I had the blessing of having a birth with a midwife, of breastfeeding each child for 3½ years and of being home with them full time. These things have not been easy at all times by any means! And it has been the perfect thing for me. I am so grateful for all the amazing people it has brought into my life and for all the doors it has opened for me. And now I am in wonder of what lies ahead knowing that this phase of MY life is over but my connection is still as strong as ever. I watch each pregnant woman with wonder and I am excited for the day where I get to be in more direct contact with these women and be part of their path as they walk through their journey. What a gift, what a blessing!!!

Ending the Holidays with a BANG!!

August 31st is our Independence Day and also the day before school starts back. Starting last year, our community hosts a Sports Day for the villagers as a way to have one last day of fun before the holidays finish and the school routines start. Carl and I are very involved in the community groups so we were organizing lots for the day and Kahlil and Kamala were very excited about all the races and prizes and fun things planned.


Kahlil's school also started having a Sport's Day last year in June to mark the end of the school terms. Now Brasso Seco is in a mountainous valley with very little flat area so we do not have any official play ground and area for the kids to run and play - they do that in the streets and rivers and such - so the Sport's Day races are held in the road. Kahlil did great and had fun last year (08) and was so excited for this year but in the first race of the day (in June) he fell and got a skid on his forehead, side and legs. So that was the end of his School Sports Day for him and the saving grace for that day was the huge river lobster we caught in the river that afternoon with some visiting friends of his - so he did get a prize and get to eat it too =)!!

After that experience, we were wondering how he would feel about running in yesterdays Community Sports Day, but he was excited and ready and eyeing the first prize. And he went out and ran like a champ and got that first prize as well as two seconds and was truly loving the day!! Kamala too was wanting to run every race no matter what the age or kind of race and she also came away with three prizes for the day!! Even Carl and I tried a few races and I came away with two prizes and Carl won a silver medal but pulled his right hamstring muscle in the process =(.

After the races there was a competition on what is called the "greasy pole". This is a small, straight, thin tree that has been cut down, all branches removed, all bark skinned, and supported about 8 inches off the ground. It is difficult enough to cross like this because it gets especially wobbly in the middle but to add to the excitement and challenge there is a layer of grease put on the pole to make it super slidy. (OK, in hind site this is a recipe for disaster!) Kahlil did not try this last year but was excited about trying this year and took many chances and although he never reached the end, he did well and was having fun. The competition finished when the first person reached the end of the pole. But of course, the pole is still there to play on and that is what Kahlil and many of the boys were doing when down came Kahlil - slipping off the pole, tumbling on the ground and letting out a piercing cry.

We are 45 minutes from the nearest Health Facility in Arima which real;y does not have the ability to do very much. We are another 45 minutes from the nearest hospital (Mt Hope) that can better attend to what we figured was a broken arm. So we hopped in the car with a crying, in pain, grease & grass & mud covered Kahlil and made our way to Mount Hope Medical Complex. Now Trinidad has a free medical system if you are willing to put your health into the hands of the public hospitals. If not, there are many a private clinics that will be happy to take your money. When we were dealing with surgically removing a cyst from Kamala's hip, we chose the private route because the public system did not see it as a priority and we would have had to wait for a year before they would have called her for surgery. We had a great experience. Gratefully, I had heard good and reassuring stories from friends about the Mt Hope Pediatric Accident & Emergency Department so we decided to try the public route first. And I definitely cannot complain! We arrived at 8PM and by 9PM we were going home and Kahlil had been seen by a doctor, had his arm x-rayed, had the x-ray reviewed by doctors and an orthopedic doctor and had a 'backlash' cast put on by the orthopedic doctor. Every person who attended to us was kind, patient, attentive to Kahlil, and totally responsive to all my questions - of which there were many since this is the fist broken bone of any member of our family.

The break is in the left humerus just above the elbow and is gratefully not a bad break in the sense it is not big and did not go all the way through. The main concern for breaks in this area is because of all the vascular activity happening there but each doctor was sure to check his wrist and inner elbow pulses and the mobility of his hand and fingers and everything seems fine. The cast is just hard at the bottom and sides and wrapped in a bandage around but it does go from his hand up the middle of his upper arm. They put it in a sling to help him hold it all in position. We go back next week to the paediatric orthopedic clinic to have it looked at again. Breaks usually take from 6-8 weeks to heal with kids usually healing on the faster side. He is right handed so he can go to school as normal - to which he responded an emphatic NO WAY!!

We were home by 11PM last night and spent all day today watching movies, reading stories, eating soup and crackers and just laying low. Kahlil did not complain with any pain today - just a general discomfort - so I did not give him any kind of medication. We took an evening walk under the light of an almost full moon and breathed in the healing energies of the trees and rivers. We are repeating a mantra throughout the day of "my arm is healed". I have told him the plan is to spend time each evening focusing healing energy on his arm so that he will be healed long before the 8 weeks and we have been talking lots about the fact that it doesn't matter where people are, once they send out that healing energy it will reach his arm instantly and he will have the powers of the universe focused on his healing - lucky thing!!