By Jill Fennema –

Phyllis Hartog used to be known as the dog-lady in town. She would dog-sit for people in the area, taking their dogs into her home for days at a time. About three years ago, she decided she could not do dogs anymore, much to the disappointment of her long-term clients.

Now she is the bird-lady! “People think I’m crazy,” the 85-year-old says.

Her granddaughter Larissa, who lives in Pueblo, Colorado, started her on raising birds. Larissa raises finches professionally. She has an aviary in her home and has raised hundreds of finches. She breeds them and her goal is to get a pink female finch. Typical females are cream-colored.

A couple of years ago, when Phyllis was visiting the family with Larissa’s mom, Shawna, Larissa sent them home with a set of finches – one male, one female.  The weather turned terrible and Phyllis and Shawna had to stop at a hotel in Nebraska because they couldn’t see the road anymore. They smuggled the finches into the hotel and everyone survived the trip!

When she got the birds to Edgerton, she put them in a bird cage and a few weeks later they were laying eggs.

Phyllis calls her male finch Luke. Luke is currently on his third mate, whom Phyllis calls Laura.  Laura was purchased in the Twin Cities area over the winter, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pet birds have been hard to come by during the pandemic. Phyllis really wanted another female so that she could get more baby birds, but the pet store only had another colorful finch that Phyllis thought was another male. She took the male so that Luke would at least have a companion.

But a few weeks after getting a “little brother” to play with, Luke and his mate were sitting on eggs! Turns out that the new finch was a colored female, which is unusual.