Hi Ci. I thank you for the link. It is quite an interesting thing, haven't thought to link the pots to a gravity feed water tank. It would have helped a lot today with the watering. So many things seem to have dry pots today, and I was busy all day long. We need a good soaking rain, about 2 inches would work nicely for starters. :)

It is indeed a long term commitment, Nancy. One of the benefits of participating in parrot-owner groups is finding someone who can take your animals should life conditions change. Sometimes it is not death, but economics which force a rehoming of a parrot.....like large noisy macaws especially are rehomed when folks in recent years lost their homes and moved in with family or into apartments etc which did not accept such noisy pets. Of course, once night comes, parrots are quiet and asleep, but still, a macaw is a wood-eating machine and to consider what is fair to the bird is also important. They need space, and time out of the confinement. So, having someone who can permanently or temporarily care for the birds is a big issue for parrot owners. And as you say, they can life as long a life as human beings. I discovered parrots late in life, maybe when I was 45, and so any young birds I take will outlive me, given a normal longevity. My adored African greys are just now sexually mature, around 15 for one, and my big boy Kimali turned 14 on March 18.....I had him from the time he was 5 weeks old, fell in love with the little dinosaur when he was hatched only 3 days. So he's known me all his life. We have a special relationship. One of the major concerns with most people is the long term care of the parrots after we pass on. So, the parrots are in my will. I am a fan and supporter of Iowa Parrot Rescue near Muscatine Iowa, and have taken several parrots to them for my vet when folks cannot keep them. IPR is a 401c3 or whatever it is, tax deductible etc, and it is a great place out in the middle of huge expanses of corn fields, with an outdoor aviary, and a large permanent care facility along with an active adoption program. Parrots coming from a home frequently need a new family to love, and prefer to be touched and handled. Yet others have been so badly abused for whatever reasons, that they are custodial candidates. Mike and Abi evaluate potential homes before and after an adoption, and I trust their judgement with this. I have a bequest to the IPR in my will, and definitely support them during the present time. In most cases, family members are not inclined to share legacies with a bird, and in my mind it is not an optional commitment. Before everything else, my animals, dogs as well as birds, are to be provided for. My external hard drive with 10 years worth of photos on it failed, and it also contained the backups for the whole computer. So, now I must send it off to be salvaged if possible. All I have left are albums on Flickr. I might have a couple of pictures accessible but what a sad thing. I took 10 gig of photos of just my hosta garden last year, so those are gone too. Real bummer. Dolly and Dixie. Dolly is the puppy. Keno, a male eclectus parrot adopted when his mama died of esophageal cancer Kimali male African grey in the dining room Rumbles, a tiny female African grey adopted last May when her mama was diagnosed with brain tumor and lung cancer

In most incorporated areas that actually have an Animal Control Department, that's where you start. If AC doesn't deal with venomous snakes in your area, you can call the local police department or sherriff's office, depending on whose jurisdiction you live in. Some of them do not respond on venomous snake calls, some do. If you cannot get any help that way, check the Yellow Pages for pest control companies for someone like this one that I found by Goggling: Wildlife and Pest Control/Removal Where we live, in an unincorporated part of a rural county, the only Animal Control officer in the county is employed by the city of Marietta, so that employee only responds to animal complaints within the city limits. Out here in the rural areas, we have to deal with them ourselves, which is not a problem since you can shoot guns in unincorporated areas. In some of the smaller towns, like Thackerville, the local police sometimes respond to help a citizen who has a problem with dogs at large or wildlife issues. Good luck. My experience with snakes is that if you don't kill it or trap it when you see it, then it will be gone when you fetch a gun and come back 3 or 5 minutes later. They don't just sit there waiting for you to come back. To get around that when I am home alone, I just call the nearest neighbor who is home and they come over and shoot the varmint, which I have been standing and watching so it can't get away or go into hiding before they get there. Good neighbors like that are worth their weight in gold.

Extremely heavy rains seem to drive water snakes (Yellow bellied & Moccasins)up from the lake and into our pond. And, once there, they find the living pretty good. I saw one grab a palm sized goldfish and take it out of the pond. I startled the snake and the fish was dropped and I returned it to the pond. They are really hard to trap. I have a small gauge shotgun (.410) that I use to kill them. I have to stalk them for days to get a shot. I do have some King snakes that hang around the pond and yard but I leave them alone.