Things for Wings order!

This was actually a combined order. What happened was that I purchased a part of the haul during side-walk sale and asked Danita, owner of T4W to hold it for me for a little bit so I can add to my order later on and save on shipping. Well, that’s what I did and a HUGE box of goodies arrived yesterday!

I had to pick my parcel up at the post office where I met a cool clerk. What granted her the “cool” status? Well, she saw that on the box it says parrot toys and told me she also has parrots.

I asked her ” What kind ?” expecting the usual answer I get- a green one. Much to my surprise, she told me she has a small flock of cockatiels and she has a huuge aviary for them. Luckily, I was the only one at the post office, so we started talking about parrots and caring for them and it all ended with me opening my box there…at the post office!Danita has super power packing skills, so I had to carry a box with parrot toys hanging from it to my car.

She loved the toys and I gave her one of Danita’s business cards, so she can order from there, also.

And now the pics!!!

Passion flower shred and chew is a great toy and much larger than I thought it would be. I also got 10 of pine foot toys that are stuffed with colored beads. I should have ordered more as they are going crazy over them.

Lino’s toys 🙂 He’s like a termite and destroys all his toys, even if made out of harder woods VERY quickly! I really like the pine toy, it’s made on SS rods and has beads between pine blocks.

My favorite toy- a custom toy for Lino! It has pine, yucca, cottonwood, willow, hardwood beads and vine balls tied together with various ropes; seagrass, leather, hemp and coco rope. It’s very tightly packed and it will keep him busy!

Ringo is a more into shredding than destroying wood, so I got her those kind of toys…filled with paper, seagrass, balsa 🙂 and they are in girly pink and purple colors!!!

And the last is also a toy for Ringo- a busy basket 🙂 a shredders dream

I love all the toys I got and it will keep them very happy for awhile 🙂

Banana berry crackers

I made this wonderful and very simple to make crackers for my two parrots, since they’ve so good lately. You can add or substitute any of the ingredients, it’s that simple to make 🙂

Ingredients needed:

1/4 cup of flax seeds * (optional)

1 tbs of chia seeds* (optional)

1/2 cup of water* (optional)

1/2 cup of berries ( I used goji berries and blueberries)

1 cup flour ( I used 1/2 cup of spelt flour and 1/2 cup of millet flour, but any will do)

1/2 cup of coconut flakes 

1/2 of a banana ( or one smaller banana)

1/2 cup of buckwheat

1 tbs of Pura Vida ( or any herbs you like, for eg. chamomile, hibiscus, etc)

some Cayenne pepper  ( or cinnamon or any other parrot friendly spice)

First, you soak chia and flax seeds in water. It doesn’t take that long for both chia and flax to turn into a gooey mix. Once they have gelatinized, put them, coconut and banana into a blender and pulse it until you have a smooth paste. I blend coconut flakes because this way little bits of coconut get evenly distributed in the dough. That being said, you don’t have to do that, you can add it later on.

In your flour add the banana paste and mix it all together, than add the rest of ingredients. Mix them well!!! Don’t be alarmed if your mix is sticky. It’s supposed to be, though. Just spread it onto a baking sheet, place another on top, roll the dough out and put it either in your dehydrator or in the oven.

If you dehydrate them, it will take 12 hours or in the oven for a few hours. If you are going to bake them, than you should bake them at 130 Celsius until firm…cca 30 min.

You can form different shapes, than roll them into seeds if you like it that way more. You could substitute banana for any other fruit, since flax and chia combo are creating a gooey enough mix.

If you don’t have flax or chia seeds, you could make these crackers just with a banana. I’ve made them before with only a banana and dried fruit and it works equally good and to be honest, I think they like it more with only banana and berries in it.  I think I’ll make my next batch without flax and chia. If you decide to use a more “watery” fruits like an apple, than just remember to add a bit more flour.

So, you see it’s that easy to make homemade crackers 🙂

Happy baking everyone!

New Crystal’s Bird Toys order

Few days ago I received a wonderful parcel from Crystal’s Bird Toys. However, I just got around to post about it 🙂

Everything looks amazing. So, here are the pics 🙂

I ordered a Make it Snappy and Make it Snippy. One is made out of balsa and the other one is out of pine.

And a large HOOT bag. I don’t think my picture shows how many toys were in the hoot bag!! One thing that completely blew my mind was that Crystal color cordinated all the toys; blue ones for Lino and pink and purple ones for Ringo. She, even included two of each toy, so both of them get their own. That’s BEYOND amazing customer service.

Ringo NEVER plays with store bought toys, no matter how many custom toys I buy, she’ll only play with some foot toys. She will, however, play with toys I make her, especially if she sees me making them. I hung the Make it Snippy on their playground and she flew to it, started destroying it and didn’t move from it for an hour!!! I’m very pleased to see her destroying a toy with so much gusto!

Thank you, Crystal!!!