Poor Tex, and such a horrifying experience for you both. You are lucky to have a husband so willing; he's worth his weight in gold. Positive thoughts are going your way!
Fair is fowl, fowl is fair.
- Thread starter fowltemptress
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #52
The birds of prey have been active lately. The other day I noticed a huge pile of feathers out near the guinea coops. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who had been taken. None of my guineas have feathers like what was in the pile, and my chicken count at night came up correct, so I was confused. Molting has also begun in earnest for some of the chooks, so it took me awhile to realize this wasn't normal:
So, from this I've learned that chickens have enough rump feathers to fool me into thinking a whole bird has been taken. Apparently lizards aren't the only animals that can lose a tail as a defense mechanism!
Once I realized Marian wasn't molting I did check her over. She was acting normal, but she had a huge tear in her skin under her wing, exposing the muscles beneath. I'm kicking myself for never thinking to take pictures of injuries, but most chicken owners who have experienced this type of injury know it looks pretty alarming the first time you see it. As far as injuries go, though, I welcome this type. They're easy to clean, and the skin mends itself rapidly. I swear if you sat and watched you could actually see the skin pulling itself together.
Marian is a lucky bird, but there have been some losses, as is the case every year. Most of the losses have been from the guineas - I lost my one purple guinea finally. I had hoped he would beat the odds - but I also recently lost one of the Golden Girls who'd been raising up a couple of chicks. Normally I would have let the chicks be because chicks in my flock do very well even without mothers, but one of these chicks had a leg sticking out sideways from its body. It wasn't like that before the hen disappeared, so I'm not sure if this injury was courtesy of the same attack that took the mom. When I picked the chick up and manipulated the leg I felt some crunching and a pop, like something went back into a socket. The leg is no longer bent the wrong way, but the chick isn't using it so I tossed it and its sibling in the garage to give it time to heal up.
As far as things go on the Tex front, the other ganders have quit trying to chase him away from the flock, so I've been comfortable letting him roam with everyone during the day. He preens all the time, which I think is keeping his feathers in better condition than they otherwise would be. I still lock him up with Hans in the garage at night, but that's because the coops are always a little overcrowded this time of year and I'm wanting to make sure he has access to all the food and water he wants. He'd probably be fine in the coop, but I feel like it'll take awhile before I can convince myself to quit babying him quite so much.
RIP Purple. You had a good run.
So, from this I've learned that chickens have enough rump feathers to fool me into thinking a whole bird has been taken. Apparently lizards aren't the only animals that can lose a tail as a defense mechanism!
Once I realized Marian wasn't molting I did check her over. She was acting normal, but she had a huge tear in her skin under her wing, exposing the muscles beneath. I'm kicking myself for never thinking to take pictures of injuries, but most chicken owners who have experienced this type of injury know it looks pretty alarming the first time you see it. As far as injuries go, though, I welcome this type. They're easy to clean, and the skin mends itself rapidly. I swear if you sat and watched you could actually see the skin pulling itself together.
Marian is a lucky bird, but there have been some losses, as is the case every year. Most of the losses have been from the guineas - I lost my one purple guinea finally. I had hoped he would beat the odds - but I also recently lost one of the Golden Girls who'd been raising up a couple of chicks. Normally I would have let the chicks be because chicks in my flock do very well even without mothers, but one of these chicks had a leg sticking out sideways from its body. It wasn't like that before the hen disappeared, so I'm not sure if this injury was courtesy of the same attack that took the mom. When I picked the chick up and manipulated the leg I felt some crunching and a pop, like something went back into a socket. The leg is no longer bent the wrong way, but the chick isn't using it so I tossed it and its sibling in the garage to give it time to heal up.
As far as things go on the Tex front, the other ganders have quit trying to chase him away from the flock, so I've been comfortable letting him roam with everyone during the day. He preens all the time, which I think is keeping his feathers in better condition than they otherwise would be. I still lock him up with Hans in the garage at night, but that's because the coops are always a little overcrowded this time of year and I'm wanting to make sure he has access to all the food and water he wants. He'd probably be fine in the coop, but I feel like it'll take awhile before I can convince myself to quit babying him quite so much.
RIP Purple. You had a good run.
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- Thread starter
- #53
Heya to anyone stumbling across this, I just wanted to warn you - I raise my birds for meat and will be talking about it in this post. There may even be graphic pictures . . . I won't know until I see what's stored in my phone. I believe in keeping animals happy and healthy until the deed is done, and I believe I accomplish that goal in spades, but if it still bothers you, this was your chance to quit reading. ❤
Happy New Year!
January bird count:
9 Geese
13 Ducks
43 Guineas
26 Chickens
4 Not Chickens
Taking a few months off of social media sure makes changes in the bird count seem abrupt.
Last year my mother requested to join me in one of my "slaughterfests." She raises painted desert sheep, but with older age she was thinking of getting into something easier to handle and wanted to see how she'd handle the butchering of waterfowl. So she loaded up a cooler and came for a visit with my best girlfriend this past October.
The first misadventure here was in my timing. I have never before attempted to control when my birds hatch things out, so slaughterfest days tend to trickle throughout the months. This year, in an attempt to time things for when my mother could help, I had one big batch of everything hatch, only to do the math and realize they'd hatched a few weeks too early. I didn't want to hold onto that many birds for that long, so I'd have to butcher the bulk of them myself before the visit. Then I started thinking, "but wait! How many coolers is she bringing? I should probably hatch more just in case I still need to bulk up my own meat supply." So I allowed my ducks to go broody a second time. By the time Mom arrived with my friend "Amy," I had already slaughtered all but six of the older batch of ducks in order to make room in the coops, and with the younger batch I still had too many birds. That said, with two helpers those six ducks were a whiz to pluck and process. I normally do the processing on my own, and it can take me all day to do five ducks. I think the most I've done myself in a day is eight, and I vow never to do that to myself again.
The second misadventure was grossly underestimating how uncomfortable I would be letting someone else try and kill my ducks. Mom and Amy were great with grabbing them and bringing them to the kill site. If anything, they're better at it than me. Mom has been handling larger animals than that since before I was born. The ducks must have felt like nothing to her since grappling with big old beasts like these gorgeous things:
As for Amy, I don't know where she gets it from. She's a vegetarian who's always up for any sort of slaughterfest, whether we're helping Mom slaughter sheep for the freezer, harvesting her own rabbits, or dealing with my poultry. She's certainly more in tune with where meat is coming from than most of the omnivorous humans I know, and she's comfortable handling animals in life as well as in death.
Amy and me helping with some of Mom's unsold ram lambs.
The only person who had an issue with the grabbing of ducks was me, embarrassingly enough. One always seems to get me with its wing every year, and I got whacked good this year. But since I am eating them, it only seems fair they get a few pummels in beforehand.
The bruise is long gone by now, but I can still feel a hard lump where it was.
I know I could make my life easier by handling the birds when they're younger so that they're calmer about it when the time comes to slaughter them, but I refuse to do that. I have a hard enough time killing my birds without inviting that little bit of extra bonding time into the equation. I know I call it slaughterfest, and I do enjoy the whole processing bit - it's like doing a puzzle in reverse - but what I wouldn't give to never have to kill another animal again! I don't believe it's healthy to be vegetarian, else I probably would have gone that route ages ago. And yes, Amy knows how I feel about vegetarianism. It's almost like people with differing opinions can happily coexist. Whoda thunkit?
Speaking of vegetarianism, good gravy, it was rough finding a small container of crisco! I use lard in everything, but I wanted Amy to be able to eat the lemon meringue pie I was making in honor of Mom's visit, so I had to find some vegetable shortening. Every container was like something out of a bulk outlet! Finally my wonderful man unearthed a reasonably sized can from goodness knows where, but for a while there I was worried I'd be doomed to baking 20,000 pie crusts just to get through one container of crisco.
And speaking of (again), I had never made lemon meringue pie before this visit. I'd certainly never made meringue. When I told my father I was attempting one from scratch, he said, "You have a kitchen attachment? You don't want to do meringue by hand." I answered in the affirmative - I don't know why, I assume I was channeling a forgetful idiot at the time. Thing is, I don't really like desserts, so I don't really bake, which means I have virtually no kitchen accessories designed to make a baker's life easier. Which means when it came time to whip up that dreaded meringue, it was my paltry arm muscles up against the combined strength of way too many egg whites. So I plopped myself down on the couch next to my husband as he watched some exhausting nonsense on calculus or submarine engineering or some other thing seemingly designed to bore the snot out of me, and I whipped fit to burst my heart and noodlelize my arm muscles. Later my husband admitted to thinking it was never going to happen, and he was right on the verge of offering to make the hours long drive to buy me an eggwhite whipper-uppermajig when I let loose with a tearful, pained squeal of glee; my egg whites were stiffening! Eventually all my lemon meringue efforts culminated into this:
No, the crust isn't pretty, but focus! The meringue is the important thing here! I made two of these suckers, with the final verdict being they tasted better than my grandmother's. Do you know what it means to bake something better than my grandmother? It means I have nothing more to prove in life. You better believe I threw away that dang lemon meringue pie recipe, and with God as my witness, I will never make meringue again!
I know at some point I must have been talking about slaughtering in this post . . . ah yes! The horror of watching someone else try to kill the ducks humanely. I learned how to do it using this video. I don't wait for the bird to bleed out, though. I have a horror of any sort of pain and want to do away with any possibility of it happening beyond the first cut, so I break the neck as soon as I slice the neck, and for added measure I immediately use a pithing tool. Being out of control of this process was torture. I demonstrated to Mom and Amy as best I could, and then came their turns. Mom couldn't break the skin for some reason. I think she's so used to dispatching large mammals that she couldn't find her bearings with the ducks. I was right next to her with a knife and swooped in immediately, which honestly felt much better than what happened with Amy. The problem with Amy is she was able to kill her ducks, but her method was off from my own. Yes, people absolutely need to find their own footing with this sort of chore and do what's comfortable for them, but because they were my birds that I raised, I couldn't help but want to jump in and do things exactly my way. I don't know that giving in to my control freak tendencies would have actually minimized any suffering, but I know I would have felt better about it. I'd do it again in the name of helping people get to the point where they can kill confidently and thus minimize pain, but oof. I really never want to have to experience that again. People have to learn somewhere, though, and I'm grateful to everyone out there willing and able to teach others this life skill.
The third issue was the cooler Mom brought. First off, she only brought one. A normal sized one, but to my mind, way too small. For her part, Amy brought none. For crying out loud people, I need space in my freezer for this year's batch of birds, and how was I to do that with only one measly cooler to work with?! Turns out when I told Mom I had six birds she could butcher, she'd thought that was what she'd be going home with. She hadn't realized I had planned to load her up with as much meat as humanly possible. Mom wound up traveling with my husband to buy a larger cooler, but still, that was only one cooler to fill. I put all that was left of last years smoked meat in there, lots of raw parts for her to experiment with cooking, and one whole goose in case she wanted to try roasting one for the holidays. With all that, I still didn't have room for the giant batch of birds I wound up dispatching weeks after she and Amy left. I had to cook many more things than I usually do and find nooks and crannies I didn't know existed, and I just managed to make it work somehow. I know, too much meat is a great problem to have, and I definitely am not complaining. It was just one of those things I hadn't expected to have to deal with. I had expected Mom and Amy to arrive with a vehicle loaded to the brim with coolers. Better communication is the order for the future.
When I finished slaughtering the rest of the ducks a few weeks later, you could tell my breeders were happy to have their coop back. They were beak to butt when put up for the night for awhile there.
They don't normally get food and water in their coop, but I was doing a full clean out the next day, and I always let them muck it up as much as they like the night before a clean out.
I still have one more batch of six to go, but they won't be ready until at least the end of January. This batch was a concession to Katya; both her previous broods had been stolen by other mama ducks this year, so I allowed her one last go at it since she seemed dead set on raising her own duckles. I'm a soft touch sometimes. This little girl hatched a bit later than the rest of Katya's eggs, so she had to spend a day living in the warmth of my man's armpit lest she freeze to death. The weather had turned crisp and Katya had already left the nest with the siblings. The little one dried up, found her legs, and was slipped under Katya that same night, so no harm done. I think muscovies are some of the most delightful birds to watch grow up.
The geese I'd raised for this year were ready around the same time as the ducks. I really wish I'd had Mom and Amy around for the processing of all these birds; I was so knotted up by the end of it all. I definitely prefer letting my birds brood in their own time, rather than hatching out in big batches like this.
Unlike the ducks, the geese had plenty of room in their coop. You'd just never know it because they always insisted on being in one big clump!
I can't dispatch the geese on my own, so my husband always helps with an axe. We have two nails driven into a log between which we place the goose's neck, and it enables us to stretch the bird out for a nice clean blow. Then, of course, I use my pithing tool on the head. In grade school I once had a teacher make an offhand remark about how people's heads would live for several seconds after being guillotined off a body, and that sort of thing sticks with a child of my imagination. The pithing tool gives me so much peace of mind.
Another difference with the geese is I cover their head with a sock when I grab them for the deed, being sure to leave the neck unobstructed. You don't want the sock softening the blow of the axe. The geese calm down immediately once the sock is on their head. It makes a huge difference. After that, the processing is a peace of cake. Muscovy feathers stick to the carcass like their lives depend on it, which makes plucking a goose carcass feel like a walk in the park in comparison. For anyone complaining about how much work plucking is, I recommend finding a species of bird that's even harder to pluck. It's the same concept as walking outside on a freezing day; it sure makes your chilly house seem hot as the devil's armpit once you re-enter.
For the record, Mom did wind up roasting that goose for Thanksgiving. My aunt made a ham in case everyone hated the goose, but no one wound up eating it! Mom knocked it out of the park, and the only downside was there was no leftover roast goose for her to enjoy. For a family that's notorious in never trying or liking new foods, that's quite a feat!
I hope everyone has been having great holidays!
Happy New Year!
January bird count:
9 Geese
13 Ducks
43 Guineas
26 Chickens
4 Not Chickens
Taking a few months off of social media sure makes changes in the bird count seem abrupt.
Last year my mother requested to join me in one of my "slaughterfests." She raises painted desert sheep, but with older age she was thinking of getting into something easier to handle and wanted to see how she'd handle the butchering of waterfowl. So she loaded up a cooler and came for a visit with my best girlfriend this past October.
The first misadventure here was in my timing. I have never before attempted to control when my birds hatch things out, so slaughterfest days tend to trickle throughout the months. This year, in an attempt to time things for when my mother could help, I had one big batch of everything hatch, only to do the math and realize they'd hatched a few weeks too early. I didn't want to hold onto that many birds for that long, so I'd have to butcher the bulk of them myself before the visit. Then I started thinking, "but wait! How many coolers is she bringing? I should probably hatch more just in case I still need to bulk up my own meat supply." So I allowed my ducks to go broody a second time. By the time Mom arrived with my friend "Amy," I had already slaughtered all but six of the older batch of ducks in order to make room in the coops, and with the younger batch I still had too many birds. That said, with two helpers those six ducks were a whiz to pluck and process. I normally do the processing on my own, and it can take me all day to do five ducks. I think the most I've done myself in a day is eight, and I vow never to do that to myself again.
The second misadventure was grossly underestimating how uncomfortable I would be letting someone else try and kill my ducks. Mom and Amy were great with grabbing them and bringing them to the kill site. If anything, they're better at it than me. Mom has been handling larger animals than that since before I was born. The ducks must have felt like nothing to her since grappling with big old beasts like these gorgeous things:
As for Amy, I don't know where she gets it from. She's a vegetarian who's always up for any sort of slaughterfest, whether we're helping Mom slaughter sheep for the freezer, harvesting her own rabbits, or dealing with my poultry. She's certainly more in tune with where meat is coming from than most of the omnivorous humans I know, and she's comfortable handling animals in life as well as in death.
Amy and me helping with some of Mom's unsold ram lambs.
The only person who had an issue with the grabbing of ducks was me, embarrassingly enough. One always seems to get me with its wing every year, and I got whacked good this year. But since I am eating them, it only seems fair they get a few pummels in beforehand.
The bruise is long gone by now, but I can still feel a hard lump where it was.
I know I could make my life easier by handling the birds when they're younger so that they're calmer about it when the time comes to slaughter them, but I refuse to do that. I have a hard enough time killing my birds without inviting that little bit of extra bonding time into the equation. I know I call it slaughterfest, and I do enjoy the whole processing bit - it's like doing a puzzle in reverse - but what I wouldn't give to never have to kill another animal again! I don't believe it's healthy to be vegetarian, else I probably would have gone that route ages ago. And yes, Amy knows how I feel about vegetarianism. It's almost like people with differing opinions can happily coexist. Whoda thunkit?
Speaking of vegetarianism, good gravy, it was rough finding a small container of crisco! I use lard in everything, but I wanted Amy to be able to eat the lemon meringue pie I was making in honor of Mom's visit, so I had to find some vegetable shortening. Every container was like something out of a bulk outlet! Finally my wonderful man unearthed a reasonably sized can from goodness knows where, but for a while there I was worried I'd be doomed to baking 20,000 pie crusts just to get through one container of crisco.
And speaking of (again), I had never made lemon meringue pie before this visit. I'd certainly never made meringue. When I told my father I was attempting one from scratch, he said, "You have a kitchen attachment? You don't want to do meringue by hand." I answered in the affirmative - I don't know why, I assume I was channeling a forgetful idiot at the time. Thing is, I don't really like desserts, so I don't really bake, which means I have virtually no kitchen accessories designed to make a baker's life easier. Which means when it came time to whip up that dreaded meringue, it was my paltry arm muscles up against the combined strength of way too many egg whites. So I plopped myself down on the couch next to my husband as he watched some exhausting nonsense on calculus or submarine engineering or some other thing seemingly designed to bore the snot out of me, and I whipped fit to burst my heart and noodlelize my arm muscles. Later my husband admitted to thinking it was never going to happen, and he was right on the verge of offering to make the hours long drive to buy me an eggwhite whipper-uppermajig when I let loose with a tearful, pained squeal of glee; my egg whites were stiffening! Eventually all my lemon meringue efforts culminated into this:
No, the crust isn't pretty, but focus! The meringue is the important thing here! I made two of these suckers, with the final verdict being they tasted better than my grandmother's. Do you know what it means to bake something better than my grandmother? It means I have nothing more to prove in life. You better believe I threw away that dang lemon meringue pie recipe, and with God as my witness, I will never make meringue again!
I know at some point I must have been talking about slaughtering in this post . . . ah yes! The horror of watching someone else try to kill the ducks humanely. I learned how to do it using this video. I don't wait for the bird to bleed out, though. I have a horror of any sort of pain and want to do away with any possibility of it happening beyond the first cut, so I break the neck as soon as I slice the neck, and for added measure I immediately use a pithing tool. Being out of control of this process was torture. I demonstrated to Mom and Amy as best I could, and then came their turns. Mom couldn't break the skin for some reason. I think she's so used to dispatching large mammals that she couldn't find her bearings with the ducks. I was right next to her with a knife and swooped in immediately, which honestly felt much better than what happened with Amy. The problem with Amy is she was able to kill her ducks, but her method was off from my own. Yes, people absolutely need to find their own footing with this sort of chore and do what's comfortable for them, but because they were my birds that I raised, I couldn't help but want to jump in and do things exactly my way. I don't know that giving in to my control freak tendencies would have actually minimized any suffering, but I know I would have felt better about it. I'd do it again in the name of helping people get to the point where they can kill confidently and thus minimize pain, but oof. I really never want to have to experience that again. People have to learn somewhere, though, and I'm grateful to everyone out there willing and able to teach others this life skill.
The third issue was the cooler Mom brought. First off, she only brought one. A normal sized one, but to my mind, way too small. For her part, Amy brought none. For crying out loud people, I need space in my freezer for this year's batch of birds, and how was I to do that with only one measly cooler to work with?! Turns out when I told Mom I had six birds she could butcher, she'd thought that was what she'd be going home with. She hadn't realized I had planned to load her up with as much meat as humanly possible. Mom wound up traveling with my husband to buy a larger cooler, but still, that was only one cooler to fill. I put all that was left of last years smoked meat in there, lots of raw parts for her to experiment with cooking, and one whole goose in case she wanted to try roasting one for the holidays. With all that, I still didn't have room for the giant batch of birds I wound up dispatching weeks after she and Amy left. I had to cook many more things than I usually do and find nooks and crannies I didn't know existed, and I just managed to make it work somehow. I know, too much meat is a great problem to have, and I definitely am not complaining. It was just one of those things I hadn't expected to have to deal with. I had expected Mom and Amy to arrive with a vehicle loaded to the brim with coolers. Better communication is the order for the future.
When I finished slaughtering the rest of the ducks a few weeks later, you could tell my breeders were happy to have their coop back. They were beak to butt when put up for the night for awhile there.
They don't normally get food and water in their coop, but I was doing a full clean out the next day, and I always let them muck it up as much as they like the night before a clean out.
I still have one more batch of six to go, but they won't be ready until at least the end of January. This batch was a concession to Katya; both her previous broods had been stolen by other mama ducks this year, so I allowed her one last go at it since she seemed dead set on raising her own duckles. I'm a soft touch sometimes. This little girl hatched a bit later than the rest of Katya's eggs, so she had to spend a day living in the warmth of my man's armpit lest she freeze to death. The weather had turned crisp and Katya had already left the nest with the siblings. The little one dried up, found her legs, and was slipped under Katya that same night, so no harm done. I think muscovies are some of the most delightful birds to watch grow up.
The geese I'd raised for this year were ready around the same time as the ducks. I really wish I'd had Mom and Amy around for the processing of all these birds; I was so knotted up by the end of it all. I definitely prefer letting my birds brood in their own time, rather than hatching out in big batches like this.
Unlike the ducks, the geese had plenty of room in their coop. You'd just never know it because they always insisted on being in one big clump!
I can't dispatch the geese on my own, so my husband always helps with an axe. We have two nails driven into a log between which we place the goose's neck, and it enables us to stretch the bird out for a nice clean blow. Then, of course, I use my pithing tool on the head. In grade school I once had a teacher make an offhand remark about how people's heads would live for several seconds after being guillotined off a body, and that sort of thing sticks with a child of my imagination. The pithing tool gives me so much peace of mind.
Another difference with the geese is I cover their head with a sock when I grab them for the deed, being sure to leave the neck unobstructed. You don't want the sock softening the blow of the axe. The geese calm down immediately once the sock is on their head. It makes a huge difference. After that, the processing is a peace of cake. Muscovy feathers stick to the carcass like their lives depend on it, which makes plucking a goose carcass feel like a walk in the park in comparison. For anyone complaining about how much work plucking is, I recommend finding a species of bird that's even harder to pluck. It's the same concept as walking outside on a freezing day; it sure makes your chilly house seem hot as the devil's armpit once you re-enter.
For the record, Mom did wind up roasting that goose for Thanksgiving. My aunt made a ham in case everyone hated the goose, but no one wound up eating it! Mom knocked it out of the park, and the only downside was there was no leftover roast goose for her to enjoy. For a family that's notorious in never trying or liking new foods, that's quite a feat!
I hope everyone has been having great holidays!
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- Thread starter
- #54
Obviously after all these months there's probably several poultry related things to type about, but before I disappear into real life again for however long my fancy takes me, I thought I should post one very important thing: these pictures of Tex were all taken today.
Including this, the most important one:
My boy's oil gland is producing oil again!!!
Including this, the most important one:
My boy's oil gland is producing oil again!!!
- Thread starter
- #55
I found this in Gosland the other day . . .
. . . so I did some detective work and came up with this:
Yep, it's just as I suspected.
The most obvious and logical step to take from here is to somehow hunt down the world's tiniest viking and present him with the world's tiniest drinking horn.
Obviously.
. . . so I did some detective work and came up with this:
Yep, it's just as I suspected.
The most obvious and logical step to take from here is to somehow hunt down the world's tiniest viking and present him with the world's tiniest drinking horn.
Obviously.
- Thread starter
- #56
When things stay below freezing, everyone gets their pools emptied and they have to make do with buckets of water that are easily replaced throughout the day. So whenever we creep back up in temperature, it's pool party time! I am fowltemptress, bringer of H2O, beloved by all waterfowl (until the temperatures dip back down, when once again I will be the pariah of the flock, the denier of water and taker-awayer of bathing fun).
- Thread starter
- #57
February bird count:
9 Geese
7 Ducks
43 Guineas
26 Chickens
4 Not Chickens
Ever since September I've been grumpy. Back then, I had a (ex) friend call me up in ecstasy over an absolutely wonderful person and great man being murdered. Turns out when you discover a number of people in your life are unapologetically evil and happy to celebrate the death of someone who advocated for less violence and more understanding through communication, you get cranky. I've been having a hard time being online at all, let alone keeping myself from letting my crankiness bleed into my typing. I try to focus on the simple happy things:
Spring will be here eventually, and I'll be able to garden again. I love to garden, though I'm pretty slap dash about the whole process and stand in awe of the skill and expertise shown by a lot of people in these forums, and by the work and dedication they put into it. Still, I'm happy to say I've eliminated all meat and most vegetables from my shopping list simply from growing things myself at home, which feels pretty good. As far as my garden goes, I don't bother fighting the bugs; if something can't grow without intervention in that area, then it doesn't need to be grown. Which means zucchini is right out - something my husband is very happy about.
I never start seeds indoors and won't be able to really plant until April at the earliest, but still, I start getting excited about gardening in December. By mid February, I'm feeling like spring is nothing but a figment of a weird fever dream, and all the color and plants in my head are hallucinations. If I didn't have my packets of seeds ready to go and pictures saved to my phone proving it's all real, I'd check myself in to the people with clean white coats.
Abby, my 32 year old, cockatiel shaped joy generator has unfortunately gone blind. I noticed it last Summer, but unless you were familiar with her, you wouldn't really know it. She's memorized her cage layout, and the only real changes is she doesn't fly around the house anymore, and she's much calmer because she can't see the things that used to scare her (like flyswatters). I looked up blind bird care, and it seems a lot of birds panic and develop anxiety upon losing their sight. My husband said Abby's known nothing but love and therefore has no need to feel anxious just because she can't see, and I think that's a sweet thought. It's nice to think I've been able to give something I love such a good life.
Nowadays she spends most of her days snuggling into my hair or trying to steal the food I'm eating. Since she can no longer see to tell whether or not she likes whatever it is I'm eating, I'm constantly on the defense these days. Her hearing is excellent, so she knows exactly when to pounce.
I don't love snow and never will, but the fact that I've been able to be out and about in it this year without feeling like my husband would soon be having to deal with my frozen corpse is nothing short of incredible. It's amazing what the human body can get used to. I love the fact that I'm able to enjoy winter now, instead of merely tolerating it from the comfort of 20 layers of heated blankets. I've always disliked water, too, so growing gills is my next step!
I love the kooky people in my life who are leaving the world a better place in a myriad of ways. I won't post their photos, obviously, but they all pretty much look like this:
Seriously, the resemblance is uncanny.
Valentines day is tomorrow, and there's something about holidays that cheers me right up. Whenever a friend of mine grumbles about Valentines and talks about how it's nothing but a Hallmark holiday, I like to make and send them a Valentine. So far they've all appreciated it. It's valid to feel upset about the commercialization of holidays, I think, but I also think it's easier to feel cranky about them when you're not receiving poorly drawn pictures of ducks from a poultry obsessed friend.
Have a happy Valentines day. There's a lot of things to love in life, and I hope everyone is able to recognize and appreciate them, even if every now and again the grumps gets the upper hand.
I think I'll end this with a song that always makes me happy when I sing it. Back when Mom was teaching school she rewrote the lyrics to Petula Clark's Downtown, which was always great on it own, but as a city hater I think the new lyrics are a vast improvement.
When you are bored
Or when you're just feeling lonely
You can always read
A good book.
Adventure awaits you
And all it will take you
Is to look inside
A good book
You can ride along beside a knight
And slay a dragon
Travel far to distant lands
In plane or boat or wagon
How can you refuse?
In books you can find a way
To have some fun and excitement
To brighten your day
So be a READER!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
Open its cover
There's a world to discover
When you look inside
A good book
Maybe you'll find
A magic mountain to climb up
When you jump inside
A good book
And maybe you'll find someone who
Would like to hear a story
Someone who is just like you
But needs a helping hand to
Read them a tale
So maybe I'll see you there
With a book in your hand
Showing someone you care
About READING!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
Adventure awaits you
And all it will take you
Is to look inside
A good book
Open its cover
There's a world to discover
When you look inside
A good book
And maybe you'll find someone who
Would like to hear a story
Someone who is just like you
But needs a helping hand to
Read them a tale
So maybe I'll see you there
With a book in your hand
Showing someone you care
About READING!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
9 Geese
7 Ducks
43 Guineas
26 Chickens
4 Not Chickens
Ever since September I've been grumpy. Back then, I had a (ex) friend call me up in ecstasy over an absolutely wonderful person and great man being murdered. Turns out when you discover a number of people in your life are unapologetically evil and happy to celebrate the death of someone who advocated for less violence and more understanding through communication, you get cranky. I've been having a hard time being online at all, let alone keeping myself from letting my crankiness bleed into my typing. I try to focus on the simple happy things:
Spring will be here eventually, and I'll be able to garden again. I love to garden, though I'm pretty slap dash about the whole process and stand in awe of the skill and expertise shown by a lot of people in these forums, and by the work and dedication they put into it. Still, I'm happy to say I've eliminated all meat and most vegetables from my shopping list simply from growing things myself at home, which feels pretty good. As far as my garden goes, I don't bother fighting the bugs; if something can't grow without intervention in that area, then it doesn't need to be grown. Which means zucchini is right out - something my husband is very happy about.
I never start seeds indoors and won't be able to really plant until April at the earliest, but still, I start getting excited about gardening in December. By mid February, I'm feeling like spring is nothing but a figment of a weird fever dream, and all the color and plants in my head are hallucinations. If I didn't have my packets of seeds ready to go and pictures saved to my phone proving it's all real, I'd check myself in to the people with clean white coats.
Abby, my 32 year old, cockatiel shaped joy generator has unfortunately gone blind. I noticed it last Summer, but unless you were familiar with her, you wouldn't really know it. She's memorized her cage layout, and the only real changes is she doesn't fly around the house anymore, and she's much calmer because she can't see the things that used to scare her (like flyswatters). I looked up blind bird care, and it seems a lot of birds panic and develop anxiety upon losing their sight. My husband said Abby's known nothing but love and therefore has no need to feel anxious just because she can't see, and I think that's a sweet thought. It's nice to think I've been able to give something I love such a good life.
Nowadays she spends most of her days snuggling into my hair or trying to steal the food I'm eating. Since she can no longer see to tell whether or not she likes whatever it is I'm eating, I'm constantly on the defense these days. Her hearing is excellent, so she knows exactly when to pounce.
I don't love snow and never will, but the fact that I've been able to be out and about in it this year without feeling like my husband would soon be having to deal with my frozen corpse is nothing short of incredible. It's amazing what the human body can get used to. I love the fact that I'm able to enjoy winter now, instead of merely tolerating it from the comfort of 20 layers of heated blankets. I've always disliked water, too, so growing gills is my next step!
I love the kooky people in my life who are leaving the world a better place in a myriad of ways. I won't post their photos, obviously, but they all pretty much look like this:
Seriously, the resemblance is uncanny.
Valentines day is tomorrow, and there's something about holidays that cheers me right up. Whenever a friend of mine grumbles about Valentines and talks about how it's nothing but a Hallmark holiday, I like to make and send them a Valentine. So far they've all appreciated it. It's valid to feel upset about the commercialization of holidays, I think, but I also think it's easier to feel cranky about them when you're not receiving poorly drawn pictures of ducks from a poultry obsessed friend.
Have a happy Valentines day. There's a lot of things to love in life, and I hope everyone is able to recognize and appreciate them, even if every now and again the grumps gets the upper hand.
I think I'll end this with a song that always makes me happy when I sing it. Back when Mom was teaching school she rewrote the lyrics to Petula Clark's Downtown, which was always great on it own, but as a city hater I think the new lyrics are a vast improvement.
When you are bored
Or when you're just feeling lonely
You can always read
A good book.
Adventure awaits you
And all it will take you
Is to look inside
A good book
You can ride along beside a knight
And slay a dragon
Travel far to distant lands
In plane or boat or wagon
How can you refuse?
In books you can find a way
To have some fun and excitement
To brighten your day
So be a READER!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
Open its cover
There's a world to discover
When you look inside
A good book
Maybe you'll find
A magic mountain to climb up
When you jump inside
A good book
And maybe you'll find someone who
Would like to hear a story
Someone who is just like you
But needs a helping hand to
Read them a tale
So maybe I'll see you there
With a book in your hand
Showing someone you care
About READING!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
Adventure awaits you
And all it will take you
Is to look inside
A good book
Open its cover
There's a world to discover
When you look inside
A good book
And maybe you'll find someone who
Would like to hear a story
Someone who is just like you
But needs a helping hand to
Read them a tale
So maybe I'll see you there
With a book in your hand
Showing someone you care
About READING!
Books can help dreams come true
READING!
Teaches you something new
READING!
Is magic just waiting for you
Last edited:
Happy Valentine's to you, a beautiful person; and happy gardening.
I always appreciate your excellent photography... and the way you view life through the medium.
Thank you for the update.
I always appreciate your excellent photography... and the way you view life through the medium.
Thank you for the update.
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