Well finally! Houston has been looking for some kind of identity for a long time and now we have it. Houston has been recently declared the fattest city in America. If you do not believe me click here or here or here I do not know how they came to that conclusion and I cannot think of an independent way of verifying it. But I think it is essentially a question of material balance. It is well known that we lead the nation in the number of restaurant meals per person and half of the year it is too hot for most people to be very active outside. Quite simply if people take in more energy than they use they have to get fat and since Houstonians are taking in more than anybody else and do not seem to match that with an increase in activity I am inclined to believe the verdict of the "fattest city in America". But why stop there? I have no room for false modesty. If there can be World Series in baseball, a game that few nations outside of these shore engage in and none participate in the Series, we are probably the fattest city in the world. So come and visit, I will take you on a safari.

Other than that, there is some serious news - in fact a left over from 2002. You will remember from the November update that QP, a cockatiel who lived with us for 7 years, decided to explore the world, flew out of the door and so far has not come back in spite of various attempts on our part. As a part of that effort, Monica made a poster with QP's picture and distributed it in the general area where we saw him last. Cockatiels have been known to fly in, attracted by food or other birds. Unfortunately in our case it did not work out. We did get a phone call, however, from a man living a few streets over, who said that he raises cockatiels and that he just happens to have a few new hatchlings he would be willing to sell.

After several weeks, as it was becoming more certain that QP was unlikely to return, we finally gave in to Monica and let her call and negotiate a price. The man was a serious hobbyist. He not only kept cockatiels but also parrots and cockatoos. Some of them were living in the house and some in a large birdhouse he built in the backyard. How big? Well, the three of us, him and his daughters and many birds fit in without a problem. He had one little cockatiel which he said was ready to go. It turned out he did not want any money for it, he said he was simply looking for a good home for the bird and when he felt that if we went through all the trouble of printing and distributing "lost bird" leaflets we must have really liked our bird and would take good care of this one. Well, that was very nice and since he definitely would not take any money, I went to the Godiva store and bought them the biggest box of chocolates I could find. (Depending on your point of view, you might think that that was not very kind.)

The baby cockatoo we took home was a lot smaller than QP when he came.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) So small that Monica still had to hand feed her (yes, we are becoming more certain every week now that it is a girl). She would make a special baby gruel, fill a syringe with it and feed the little baby, which would go totally wild and try to suck from the syringe like a puppy. By now she has graduated to millet and is slowly starting to eat adult bird seeds and always tries everything that we eat. She likes noodles, rice, tamales, bread, soup, tea and always tries to have a sip of my beer but so far we were able to keep it from her.

Every bird is different. Not only in color, QP had the classical cockatiel coloration, this one is a blonde, but in behavior. QP could fly but it was usually as a last resort. If he could walk there or climb there he would not fly (which is why his sudden fly-out after 7 years was so shocking). This bird (we still have not settled on a name) is almost the exact opposite. Even when it was very small and its wings were clipped it liked to fly. The other day I watched it trying to get from the top of the cage inside where the seeds were. After several unsuccessful attempts to climb down, she flew from the top of the cage, turned around in mid air and landed by the open cage door. Unfortunately her favored spot when she lands are peoples heads, especially mine, maybe because it has a very smooth runway. As a result I have to carefully check myself before I go out and remove all bird droppings that might have accumulated there. But that is O.K. According to Azeri legend, if a bird takes a poop on your head you will become rich. I reckon by now I must be potentially getting close to Bill Gates.

The big event in January was that we had the first two freezes of this winter. In Houston this is usually a reason for mild general panic. Because our water pipes are buried very shallowly and then run through the attic, a good freeze can lead to burst pipes and serious water damage. In addition many of the more "warm-blooded" plants need to be protected and so people use every old bed spread they can find and the front yards take on a strange new appearance. As I mentioned few months ago, this year I am trying to nurse a couple of papayas through the cold season. I started papayas from seeds last spring and was quite successful, they grew to a decent size, bloomed and even had fruit. The fruit by now reached marketable size (I have seen smaller ones in stores in UK), but I would like it to ripen on the tree. To do that I need at least a two year plant. In preparation for the cold I built two skeletons from water sprinkler pipe around two of the papaya trees, one very large (2 m) the other one smaller (about 1 m). I made a vinyl cover and in addition put in a light bulb as a heat source. Unfortunately I could not house all of the papayas and so several stayed unprotected, giving me a control population.

We were lucky in November and December because temperatures never dropped below zero. The first test came last week when we had a mild freeze, probably around -1deg C. While we did not fail the test completely, we did not pass it with flying colors either. The unprotected papayas, as expected, froze. Most of the leaves on the large papaya froze also, even though the small leaves in the crown survived and that would be enough to get going again next year but it was clear that it would not make it through another, possibly colder freeze. The tree in the smaller "greenhouse" did fine. Clearly, one 60 watt light bulb was not enough to heat the volume of air in the large enclosure but was sufficient to keep the small one above freezing. But it was also clear that if the ambient temperature were to drop more, the outcome would be probably just as bad.

I harvested the larger papayas from the large tree (Kumiko has a recipe for a Thai green papaya salad), I added another light bulb to the small "greenhouse" and gave it additional covering of old bed sheets and a tarp I found in the garage. Yesterday we had another freeze, deeper than the first one and everything seemed to have worked fine. However, we still have two more months to go and it all depends on how tough this winter will turn out to be. Wish me luck.

Finally, to show you that Houston weather is not as terrible as it might seem from the previous story, a bloom from our camellia bush. It does not seem to mind mildly lowered temperatures.








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