While living in Eastern Ky, we homeschooled our children and met some other couples in this area who also homeschooled their children. One of the ladies told my wife about finding over a dozen parakeets half starved downtown. She had captured them in a blanket and had taken them home. She took them to the vet and nursed them back to health. She asked if we would take a couple of them in and we gladly accepted. We later found out that the birds had been released during a wedding.

The boys decided to name them Velma and Daphne, after one of their favorite cartoons, Scooby Doo.

Velma was green with yellow feathers around her head, and Daphnes' coloring was white and light blue. Neither birds were very friendly right and were afraid when we put our hands in the cage. After working with Daphne, I taught her to step onto my finger when I said "up", but Velma never would.

I had to give the parakeets to my nieces before moving back to CA in 2004.