Forget the stories of the day. This could be a picture of Lucy, our baby girl.

Lucy is just over a year old. She sleeps in a cage that looks like this, though considerably larger.

Sometimes, she plays on the tabletop model of this Parrot Tower. More often you find her on a 4-foot playtree Lyman built from ribbonwood, which is very hard and impervious to strong parrot beaks.

Lucy has many toys similar to these, but she prefers to play with the plastic lid from a bottle of vegetable oil, or her wooden spool with the soda straw stuck through the center. Go figure.

Lucy eats pellets like these. She also eats a 13-bean, brown rice mixture with carrots and sweet potatoes that I make up about once every three months and freeze in snack-size bags, in addition to fresh fruits and vegetables everyday.

When I have a question, I e-mail the woman who weaned her at J-Birds in Mandeville, LA, or I consult Land of Vos.

We are working on Lucy's speech. She can say "Hey, Lucy", "What you doing?", answers the phone, "Harro?", and, of course, "Nite, nite."

Pretty cute girl.