31 October, 2011

The Long Journey of Mr. Thomas a Beckett, Esq.

Yesterday Daniel and I met up with Christine and delivered Mr. Thomas a Beckett into her capable care for a long journey north. We’d found a home for him with a pair of devoted owners up in Massachusetts and Christine was headed in that general direction, so off our marvelous orange tom went, packing along food, water, his favorite toys, a litter box for his carrier, and his favorite bed.

He apparently slept most of the way up, and around 2000 Christine delivered him to his next ride, who had him for a couple hours before passing him to K and G, who delivered him to his new home. K reports that he is taking to his new people already, which is good news. Mr. Beckett was SUCH a laid-back and personable guy, if sort of spiky when overwhelmed by the amazingness of being petted. Here’s hoping he settles in up there in Yankeeland!

Much gratitude to the people who got him there despite the wreckage of a very early snowstorm; people braved tree-strewn snowy roads and homes without power to get Mr. Beckett from Virginia to Massachusetts.

25 October, 2011

Actual Conversations That Happen Here

Daniel has been feeling unwell. So yesterday I took a break from straightening up my desk so I can get EXCELLENT pictures of baby chickens to go tell him I love him. While he was preparing to roast a chickenlandfish for our dinner.

Me: I love you.
Daniel: I love you more.
Me: No, I definitely love you more.
Daniel: You want a bag of giblets?
Me: What?! I come in here to tell you I love you and you offer me a bag of giblets?!
Daniel: It’s because I love you more. How about a landfish neck?
Me: I’m going to go blog this.

23 October, 2011

Hatchapalooza Three concludes successfully!

So all I’ve been doing this weekend is staring at eggs as they turned into actual chickens. I wound up having to help three of them because I’d opened the incubator at one point to get a picture, dropped the humidity, and shrink-wrapped them (that is, the inner membrane around them toughened to the point they couldn’t get through it without help). One chick who had pipped died because I didn’t help soon enough, which I feel guilty about. Well, and guilty about opening the incubator for a picture and shrink-wrapping some of the little guys.

At any rate, here’s a pic from above showing the inside of the brooder with the 10 of them who made it! There’s Lavender Splits (they are not visually lavender, but carry the gene for it), a couple blues, a black, two adorable porcelains, one buff, and one partridge. Then there’s the one random bantam from one of my eggs and Lord only knows what color he will turn out to be! Probably black, though, by the look of him. The others are all silkies, hatched from eggs I bought from Catdance Silkies that were shipped to me. Nine of the 18 eggs I got from Catdance hatched, which is EXCELLENT for shipped eggs. Only one of the eggs from my chickens that I stuck in there hatched, which is terrible. I think I need to trim the cushions on my porcelains (their butt feathers can get in the way of mating) and have a pep talk or two with Kemuel the Modern Game Bantam rooster about doing his duty and fertilizing eggs.

Oh, right, I was going to post a picture. I got a little font-happy, but then I love fonts almost as much as I love chickens.

Hatchapalooza 3 Class Picture: ten baby chickens from above. They are in shades ranging from gold to black, and one has racing stripes. Next to each is a bit of text naming its color or in the case of lav splits, genetic heritage. At the top of the frame is their waterer and food dish.

20 October, 2011

Answering Googled questions

“What happens when a turtle bites you”

Need more data. Please specify type of turtle. But I’ll take a shot at answering for a few types of turtle.
1) If it is a snapping turtle, your finger will fall off. Seriously. They can bite your finger off and they are freaky fast for something that looks like a living fossil. Never, ever get your fingers near a snapping turtle’s mouth.

2) If it is a box turtle, you will spend a suitable amount of time feeling ashamed of yourself for having fallen asleep with your hand right in front of a turtle. They are not freaky fast. Also you will probably bleed some because those little beaks can be sharp, and as always, there’s a risk of infection.

Yes, I know, I’m clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for posts and it’s only Thursday. Maybe sometime today one of the dogs will be unbearably cute! But you know, I find queries about being bitten by turtles ALL THE TIME in the search terms that lead people here. I find it interesting that people are so deeply concerned about being nommed by a chelonian. The other queries that get people here tend to center around whether or not you are allowed to pet a service dog.

Here is the easy answer to all those: No. Only the service dog’s handler gets to pet the service dog. This is because service dog handlers are cruel people who like to taunt you with their dogs by petting them in public, and not at all because it can be very dangerous for the handler if you are trying to distract the service dog.

19 October, 2011

Deathplague continues, eggs go into lockdown, etc etc.

Stayed home yesterday as a result of whatever Deathplague it is that has filled my sinuses with concrete. The good news is that after a day of mostly remaining motionless in my recliner taking drugs, I am starting to feel like a human being again. I have not managed to lose my voice, probably because Daniel has been bringing me tea on-demand. Chai, with honey and milk. It is so good. He also got me a dinosaur play set today when he went out to get me more drugs! So I have had dinosaurs to play with while languishing in my chair. I think he is the Best Husband Ever, really. Today is his birthday, and he’s been living here for over 13 months now and I have not tried to kill him even once. This is how you can tell he is a pretty stellar person. He has put up with chickens, feral cats in the bathroom, being the Vet Trip Chauffeur, puking dogs, screaming cats, baby chickens in the house, that time I accidentally kidnapped Pawpower, earthquakes (well OK, only one), apocalyptic storms involving either snow or rain or both, and me looking all wild-eyed and trying to make a case for a mini-cow, and yet has not tried to kill or divorce me even a little bit. Definitely the Best Husband Ever.

Twelve of the original 24 eggs in the incubator went into lockdown. Three of the four of my eggs that were in there did not develop. One I wasn’t expecting to but the others were from the Modern Game Bantams. I shall have a pep talk with Kemuel, the rooster, about doing his duty and fertilizing the eggs. The remaining egg is from the porcelain silkies. The eggs left in the incubator and probably going to hatch starting sometime on Friday are blacks, blues/splashes, lavenders/lav splits, porcelains/porc splits, and one lone partridge egg. All of them are from silkies, so this will add several adorable balls of floof to the Manor, at least until I figure out who I’m keeping and who I’m selling off.

Meanwhile, we’re pretty sure we have Mr. Beckett’s transportation situation figured out, which means he will go off to his new home next week. It’s always such a bitter-sweet time when one of the former ferals heads off to a new home. Sweet, because we are at the limit for cats we can really care for well; bitter, because we can’t help but love them while they’re in our care. Still, while we won’t be glad to see him go, we’re definitely happy that he’ll have people who can give him more attention than he can get here. He’s turned out to be a very interactive kind of cat who loves to snuggle.

18 October, 2011

I would like working sinuses please.

I seem to have contracted some kind of DEATHFLU(tm). Although it’s still pretty hard to tell if the aching body thing is my normal aching body, or aching because of whatever hellish virus I have managed to contract. I am coping pretty well and driving Daniel nuts with repeated requests for tea, drawings of ponies and velociraptors, and assistance getting the cats the hell off me so I can get out of the recliner and go to the bathroom. Meanwhile I can’t really breathe through my nose and just walking from my chair to the bathroom and back is exhausting. Whatever this is needs to stop it, right now.

In other news, we are TWO DAYS from lockdown on the eggs, with hatching to begin sometime Friday, theoretically. Cross your fingers for the baby chickens!

17 October, 2011

For a more substantive update…

Although I happen to think my struggle to get Daniel on board with my desire for a mini-cow is quite substantive, thank you.

Christine came up on Saturday and we all went to Home Depot and bought a metric crap-ton of lumber and also nails and roofing panels and another hammer and another ladder. Then we all came back here and put a roof on Bantytown which is quite nice if I do say so myself, and entailed very little blood, sweat, or tears thanks to Christine’s ability to engineer a roof on the fly. Then we got the exterior framing up for the Bantytown Suburb that will be divided into three four foot by eight foot breeding pens, which is quite roomy for a little breeding group of bantam chickens. Merlin and four of his ladies will get one, Remiel and Kefziel the little black bantams will get one, and then the last is reserved for lavender silkies although I may stick Belphegor, who is probably a rooster, and a couple hens in it for the nonce as it will be a while before the lavs are old enough for me to even know what gender they are, let alone breed.

Daniel and I might have managed to finish the framing yesterday and made at least a start on the wire walls, but I either have the world’s most miserable head cold plus body aches from overdoing yesterday (although I was really mostly useless yesterday except for fetching water and pointing majestically at things) or I have DEATHFLU with completely blocked sinuses and body aches. Oh, and I’m losing my voice, which is why I’m really sad that Daniel and I weren’t able to take our American Sign Language class this semester.[1] I must brush up on my ASL vocabulary that I’ve been working on via Lifeprint and then Daniel can just learn it on the fly. He’ll be delighted, I’m sure.

The twenty-one eggs in the incubator go on lockdown on Wednesday, at which point I will give them all one last candling and get rid of any that are not about to hatch, in order to give the hatching chicks a little more room. Then on Friday, Hatchapalooza Three will start — I’m sure I will cover it on Twitter as usual! And then on Sunday, I will sanitize the incubator and start collecting eggs from my porcelain silkies, as well as my Modern Game Bantams, for round two!

Still need someone between Ruby, NY and Boston, MA to give Mr. Thomas a Beckett a ride to his new home on the 27th of this month. Anybody?

[1] The earthquake at the end of August severely damaged the local community college, and as a result our class went from being 1730-1900 twice a week to 1800-2100 once a week, which is just not doable when I need to go to bed at 2000 in order to get up at 0400.[2]

[2] I know, I still use military time. Subtract 1200 from all numbers big enough for you to do it without zeroing out.

16 October, 2011

Actual Conversations at the Manor

Me, looking at a website: Ooo! We should get a mini-cow!
Daniel: What for?
Me: What do you mean what for? It’s a mini-cow!
Daniel: Yes but what will we do with it?
Me: We’ll have it! It’s a mini-cow!
Daniel: It’s livestock. We can’t have livestock.
Me: We’ll claim it’s a dog.
Daniel: It’s a mini-cow!
Me: Yes, but the Continental Kennel Club will register ANYTHING. We’ll get them to register it as a Great Dane.
Daniel: Then we have to register it with the county.
Me: Mini-cow!
Daniel: We do not need a mini-cow.
Me: You never let me have any fun.

13 October, 2011

I’m still standing

Ack! I am sorry to have worried people with the long quiet – I didn’t realize quite how long it had been and then people started getting worried. Everything is fine here, it’s just been a busy time! What have I been up to?

1) Working Sid! He worked for four hours, a new record, at the State Fair one Saturday. He was freakin brilliant and handled everything with grace except for some worry when we were among the various steam engines. I had a bit of a nervous moment when we decided to cautiously try looking at the goats. I was worried that Sid would distress the goats and was prepared to leave quickly if they looked alarmed. What I was not prepared for was the fact that the goats all started moving towards us in their little pens, even climbing up on the panels to get a better look. We skedaddled before we could find out what, exactly, the goats were intending to do. It just seemed easier on everyone that way.

He also worked for a couple hours at Carter Mountain Orchard another Saturday, and was mostly brilliant. But we clearly need to work harder on his “Ignoring Other Dogs” skills.

I’ve added a banner to his harness handle that says “IGNORE ME I’M WORKING” which is helping HUGELY reduce the number of people who decide to try to distract him while he’s working, but I’m still kind of bitter about the die-hard dog lovers who just have to coo and call to him. It’s extra embittering because it means I don’t feel very much like I’m part of the wider community of Dog People anymore since they’re the ones who absolutely insist that their desire to interact with Siddy is more important than my safety.

2) Doing Chickenstuff! I set 24 eggs in the incubator a little over 10 days ago, so they’ve still got a while to go. I candled them at the 10 day mark and three had not developed, so I pulled them. There’s a couple others I’m not sure about, so I’ll be candling them again here soon to see if those eggs have developed at all and if not, pulling them to make room for hatching, which should happen between October 21 and 23 (there’s a bit of a range of dates that I was setting eggs). Meanwhile I’m waiting (im)patiently for the silkies I bought earlier this year to finish growing up, but I think I have a good breeding trio of blues and a black rooster (Belphegor).

This weekend we’re building some breeding pens for chickens, renovating existing chicken pens, and generally winterizing them all. If you’re local enough to want to help out let me know, we will feed you after we have used you for manual labor!

3) We are pretty sure Mr. Thomas a Beckett has a home! The last remaining problem is that it’s in Boston. I have a ride for him on October 26th or 27th up to Ruby, NY, but we still need to get him that last 200 miles, so if you are between Ruby, NY, and Boston, MA, and would like to help Mr. Beckett get home, please click on “Contact” up there and let me know!

4) Cleaning out my yarn stash. The time has come to admit that I do not knit enough to reasonably keep all the yarn I have, so I’m going through it and selecting a bunch to send off to friends who are busier knitters than I am. This has cleared out a bunch of room in the yarn closet, which let me clean off a good chunk of my work table, but there’s still more to do (mostly getting dog paraphernalia somewhere else to live) so that I can set up my sewing machine and serger. Of course, in the middle of this the eggs in the incubator are going to hatch and my room is going to be filled with baby chickens again…

5) Knitting. I know, I just said I don’t knit much. But when the weather gets cooler, I get the urge to knit things, and since fall has descended upon us most emphatically, I’ve taken up yarn and needles again. I also need to go ahead and clean out my stash of dyeable stuff by actually dyeing it and then possibly seeing about selling it as I must admit that, realistically speaking, I am not going to wear that many silk and cotton scarves. Although it is getting colder…

I think that’s everything! Well, not quite, we also hit up the Fall Fiber Festival and Sheepdog Trials at James Madison’s Montpelier, which was a hoot and a half and I bought a very small and reasonable amount of yarn and also a lambskin to use padding out some spots on Sid’s harness that I’m not entirely happy with. Watching the border collies move sheep around is always great. Usually it’s quite warm for the fiber festival and the sheep are kind of somnolent; this year it was cool and damp and the sheep were belligerent and giving the dogs and shepherds a lot more trouble than I’ve seen previously. And there was a visit to Blackthorn Kennel so Sid could run around like a lunatic and Daniel and I could hang out with Christine and admire her chickens. Sid still desperately hopes that Christine’s dog Coal will be his friend, and Coal just keeps ignoring Sid while Siddy gets more and more frantic licking his face and wagging his tail and generally acting like a kid with no friends sucking up.

I think that really is everything this time… I will try to behave myself and not go so long without updates!