About the ship-a-thon, I may have some Nankin bantam eggs to swap. Not too sure just yet though. I'm supposed to be getting 6 more Nankin hens in about 2 weeks to go with my 2 roos. They are supposed to be adults but I'm not counting on that just yet. Anything could happen between now and then.
I did Nankins a few yrs. back, thinking I would breed them. Changed my mind. They were cute little birds though. One of my chick photos made it to google.
This one.
I remember when I shared these photos on the Nankin thread, some guy got real ...well...real..not so happy. Said they weren't Nankins, but mixed with an EGame. Nope, got the eggs from someone on here that used to show his Nankins, and did very well. I ended up selling them to someone that wanted to keep the breed going around here.
Posts scflock Passive/aggressive narcissist. The most talkative, funniest, most annoying member of the thread
Captain of the blue team
4824 WVduckchick Probably captain of the purple team, and one half of the terrible twosome that rules GNO
After a summer vacation in SC, where she bought a hat, she became affectionately known as "My Girl"
The third, and latest, parade recipient
2341 AmyLynn2374 Thread starter. Humidity Queen. Closet narcissist. All opinions matter as long as you don't question hers.
Or correct her spelling. Captain of the red team, and outspoken assister. The first parade recipient, and the highest hatch
percentage in the thread. Using a horrible LG
1913 RubyNala97 Sweet Ruby. Everyone loves her. Has a penchant for purchasing corrupted eggs
1015 WalnutHill One of the most experienced members of the thread. A real man's woman. I think of her as a cross between
Julia Child and Captain Sig from Deadliest Catch
995 rossfam06 Poor Ross. Can't see through windows. Another big part of GNO. Admitted assister, and leader of the
Asian mafia
941 silkiecuddles One of the 2 youngsters on the thread. She's been AWOL lately. Says it's because the thread was too much,
but I think it's because the homeschooled stripers are back from vacation
918 RavynFallen Interesting character. Usually pretty serious, but has been known to open windows of her own. My feeling is
that she is a knowledgeable breeder that can offer advice without making people feel like idiots
886 FridayYet The other half of the GNO terrible twosome. Habitual lurker, known for replying to anyone but me. She is usually
hiding in the shadows, but if you look into a mirror and say her name 3 times she will appear
804 BYC910 Love this guy. Older member of the thread with a wealth of information, a knack for telling the most entertaining stories,
and a total disregard for punctuation
739 sideWing The SQ rooster of the flock. Thoughtful, charming, handsome... He's everything that I'm not. Together, he and I will
be creating the most phenomenal olive eggers in the country
654 dan26552 The other young'un. Known as BR (Baby Romeo), he is a striper who is addicted to this thread. He is a thoughtful,
introspective young man with an amazing pair of rose tinted glasses. It may surprise you guys to know that BR and I PM every
day, where he usually gets
ed at least once
533 chicapee Pond hopping Brit who received only the second ever parade on the thread for hatching eggs that Ravyn graciously
sent her after a horrible shipping experience
517 sjturner79 An Aussie who appears from time to time. His DH is his wife. You will have to ask him to explain that one
354 gachooks Relatively new to the thread, but one of my favorites. My sense of humor in a woman. I thought she was a man forever
until she revealed that she was actually Kristin Wiig
340 NTBugtraq Little, angry, drunken Canadian with a trio of bear eatin' frizzies. He was run off after a Friday evening tirade where
he dared to argue with the GNO crowd. He has since started his own thread. I think it is a DIY for getting anthrax into envelopes
289 lazy gardener Another member with a ton of experience. She will peek through a window, but won't break it. We have had some
highly entertaining PMs about hay bales
263 meganhundley New addition. Posted like mad in her first week, then disappeared. I'm sure she's worried about something
251 cppeace Honestly, I can't remember enough to comment. CP, if you read this, that's your fault
195 mixedUPturk Another relatively new member. We are anxiously awaiting the results of her first hatch in her new Octo 40
188 kwhites634 Newest member. Haven't quite figured him out yet, but I think he's an ornery old man
Yorkshire, come back!!! Another Brit who was quite active in the thread early on, but I suspect she found it
too difficult to keep up. Recipient of the only ever "Across the Pond
120 AmyPaperlady I can't believe she is so low on this list. She rarely posts, but I guarantee she has read every bit of this thread
She only speaks when spoken to, unless she is on Oz's thread, where she will tell her life story. I knew I liked her when she dropped the
first Alice reference in the early days of the thread
OK, that's it. If I missed anyone, it means you aren't posting enough
But yes you are right @scflock it is very hard work to keep up on here especially when you are all so active when I'm in bed!! Hundreds of posts to read and catch up on when I've been gone. I've been a busy old bee here over the pond right now. Getting things ready for the winter and the business is busy too right now so I can't look a gift horse in the mouth when it is. Still got some birds left to sell too, they are 12 weeks now and are sexed so was hoping things would pick up but I'm afraid not. I've not had the incubator on for 12 weeks OMG 12 weeks I'm not sure how I've managed it!! I've rehomed my 2 Roos so no fertile eggs right now. Getting just one new boy next spring for some colour variety.
I'm very honoured to have been the only from across the pond
Life story, huh? C'mon, all I said in Oz's thread was how I found it (not exactly relevent here) and stuff that I'd said here, just more spread out.
But hey, I'll give you my life story. Sit back, and prepare to be BORED...
Now, I don't see much point in telling stuff that happened before I was old enough to remember, 'cept that Mom and Dad divorced when I was still in diapers, early-mid Seventies. My first actual memory has been dated for me as the day before Mom married my stepdad, Daddy Bob--a month before my 3rd birthday. Now, who here remembers Wonder Horses? For those that don't (and for dan, who I'd be surprised if he's seen a *real* one unless it was at a second-hand store or in an attic somewhere) they were plastic horses held in a metal framework with springs, that you rode by bouncing. The one I had was a bit big for me--the only way I could get off by myself was by sliding over the tail. Well, this day, my timing was evidently off, and my right upper incisor met the crest of the tail. The tail won. Now, the part that probably isn't a real first-hand memory, but simply ingrained by hearing the story so often--since I was bleeding, I insisted on Bactine and a bandaid. Got quite upset when my demands weren't met, I'm sure. My aunt tells me that, for the next few years, she was asked if I was a little slow. Understandable--a bright 3/4/5-year-old is a bit smaller and less advanced than you expect a child who is missing an upper incisor to be.
My Dad remarried when I was around 4, I think. All I really remember of the wedding was that it was an outdoor wedding at Grandma and Grandpa Hopper's house, it rained, and my soon-to-be-and-now-ex stepsisters and I were all wearing the same dress, a red calico sleeveless sundress. Whether we were part of the wedding party or not, I have no idea, though, if I was 4, then the others were 6 and 2, maybe not. In hindsight, I know I was fortunate--my parents got along with each other and with their ex's spouses, and my stepparents also got along. If not, they did a pretty darn good job of simulating it for over a decade, so that's good enough for me.
My half-brother was born 2 weeks after my 5th birthday. We later learned that there were excessive amounts of manganese in the water where we lived when Mom was pregnant with him, and up until he was 2. This caused physical brain damage in Toby. We also learned that the developers knew of the manganese. I'm not going to go any further with that now, because I'll get all ranty and totally derailed from my life story, and I haven't even hit 2 digits yet.
All through school, I was convinced I was ugly. In fact, almost the only long-running argument I had with Mom is that she tried to convince me I was not. But thick glasses since 2nd grade and an overbite severe enough that I could fit my thumb in sideways between the back of my top front teeth and the front of my bottom teeth (I wasn't a thumb-sucker, this was just done for measurement purposes--actual measurement at age 14 was 14mm) conspired against her. Even now, well past orthdontics and with contacts (or glasses not from the early '80s) I have to be in the right frame of mind to really see myself as attractive. Probably one reason I have trouble seeing it when people say my older daughter looks just like me--we're going to be beating boys off with sticks here pretty darn soon.
We moved a lot when I was a kid--I went to 3 different schools in 3rd grade--yet I wasn't a military brat (usually the first question asked when I mention the lots-of-moving). I'm guessing that more outgoing people would learn to make friends quickly under such circumstances. I went the opposite direction--why bother when I'd be leaving them behind forever anyway? Oh, don't get me wrong--I had friends, just not lots, and not generally close. Granted, part of that was due to being the non-disabled sibling, but most was due to shyness (huge shocker there, I know). Just about all my birthdays were family-only--since my birthday is 3 days after Christmas, I was generally hundreds of miles away from home with the other side of the family.
Baba (my maternal grandfather) lost the battle with lung cancer when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
At the end of 8th grade, we moved from Salem, Oregon (yes, I need to specify which Salem--I can think of at least 4 in the US ) to Crescent City, California, thus enabling me to say that I remember a lot of businesses that haven't been around for decades, and making me one of those annoying people that can give directions by saying stuff like, "Turn at where thus-and-such used to be." Took me ages to call Ocean World, Ocean World, instead of the old name, though I still think of it mostly by the old name. I'm still not sure what is where The Tired Chicken used to be--it's either an insurance office or a barber shop--I'm not often at that particular part of town, and it's changed so often.
The end of that summer, it was decided that I'd switch to living with Dad so I could get my overbite taken care of. My stepmom worked for the state of Oregon, and her health insurance would cover me if I was living with them. So I moved, and instead of living with Mom and Daddy Bob and Toby and visiting Dad, Wendy, Connie, and Tammy for summers and such (and weekends when we weren't hundreds of miles away), 'twas the other way 'round. Fortunately, at that time, Greyhound still actually came to Crescent City.
I lived with Dad, Wendy, and the girls the first two years of highschool, then Dad and Wendy got divorced towards the end of my sophomore year. I finished out the school year at Stayton Union, then moved back with Dad after my summer visit to Mom and them (Dad had moved out before the end of the school year and moved to Salem). Finished highschool at Sprague in Salem as part of the 20th graduating class in 1992. I didn't really do much in highschool--I was the teen that avoided the crowds in the lunchroom by reading in the library and then eating a huge lunch once I got home from school. Didn't do much homework--I did really well in classes that had tests weighted heavily, and less well in classes that had outside work. I still remember that in Genetics, the teacher changed the weighting of a project I never got around to doing, and lowered the importance of the tests we'd been taking all along--my grade went from an A to a C. Whoops...
After highschool, I bounced between my Grandma's and my Dad's for almost a year (with the summer and Christmas down at Mom's) for almost a year, then I moved back in with Mom. I was finally able to get a job at the video department of a local grocery store, which lasted until the video department closed about 9 months later (there were 8 video rental places within 2 square miles). During that time, on a family trip, I had a full-blown seizure in the back seat of the car. We happened to be going by a town with a hospital right then, so I was taken into the ER (by that time, I was conscious, but still a little fuzzy). They did a CAT scan and couldn't find anything. Nothing unusual, that is
They did give me some antibiotics for a sinus infection they saw forming that hadn't manifested yet, so I suppose the time wasn't completely wasted... Now, since my freshman year at highschool, I'd been found collapsed in the hallway after PE (I still say I'd just passed out from low blood sugar--I hadn't eaten that morning, and that day we did these horrible circuit things that wiped me out even when I'd eaten a lot beforehand--and the "convulsions" were probably me trying to get up after becoming semi-conscious), this was technically my second seizure... Anyway, a week or two after the car trip--just enough time for my bitten tongue to be almost finished healing--I was called in to work on my day off. I told the manager I wasn't feeling well, but there was no one else available, and I was told I could just sit and man the video register--I didn't have to do any of the other stuff I'd normally be doing. So I went in, and a little while later, I was coming to behind the counter with the manager standing over me. Evidently, I'd disappeared, and was found when she'd come over to page me. If I remember right no seizure activity was witnessed, but since I'd bitten my tongue in the exact same spot, I probably had had another seizure. Since I had two seizures in less than two weeks, it was off to a neurologist for me. I was still on my dad's insurance, so I needed to go up to Salem. Even if I'd gotten around to getting my driver's license by this point, I wouldn't've driven myself--a 6 hour drive by myself when I'd been having seizures would've been just plain stupid. No reason was found for my seizures after MRIs and EEGs and blood tests, so I was just told that I had epilepsy and was given an anticonvulsant--which worked great for me with no side effects, and all my monitoring blood tests while I was on it came back with no problems, so yay.
After the video department at ShopSmart closed, I did some jobhunting, but wasn't particularly successful. So I started classes at CR, the local community college. There, I met the man that was to become my husband.
Oo, and I get to tell the story the long way, and nobody can stop me. Mwahahahahaha!
So, I was going to CR, and it turned out that the group in charge of Earth Day activities at the college was meeting in one of my classrooms just before my class. I figured I'd go ahead and get to campus about half an hour early on meeting days and help figure out what we were going to do. We ended up organizing a poetry reading in the library. After lots of organizing, the day came. Since I'd helped with the set up, I figured I might as well stay for the reading, even though I've never really been a fan of poetry. Being there early meant that I was able to snag a seat on one of the couches instead of one of the folding chairs, though the couches were along the wall, and so one needed to sit a little sideways to see the speaker. I was sitting on the side of the couch closer to the front. This young, skinny guy came along later and sat next to me. I was slouched a little forward, and saw him out of the corner of my eye bend a bit forward, too. I started kind of shifting back and forth, watching to see if he did, too. by the end of the event, I wasn't sure if he had been looking at me or trying to see around me. Found out later that he was just trying to see... Anyway, a few weeks later was a school picnic (small community college) with a talent show. I managed to slip a note to the guy, who happened to win a couple of movie passes in the talent show later. We went out. After we'd been going out for a couple of weeks, I found out that I was 4 years older than Tom. I was 21. Therefore, I was paranoid until his birthday 6 months later (which he still thinks is ridiculous--technically, though, I could've been in trouble...) Shortly after his birthday, Tom proposed. I said yes. We were engaged for about a year and a half, and got married after getting our Associate degrees. My dad died a couple weeks before the wedding--he'd had MS that had taken forever and multiple biopsies to diagnose after it suddenly manifested. He was 49.
We'd planned to go to Victoria, British Columbia for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I lost my wallet about 5 days before the wedding. So we went to the San Juan Islands, instead. On a whale-watching trip, we ended up in Canadian waters anyway--the only time I've been out of the US. After the honeymoon, we started the school year at HSU, down in Arcata.
OK, so I've only gotten to age 23 (1997), so this isn't my whole life story, but I'm already almost 700 posts from when I decided to do this so I'll just write a quick summary of the important stuff so I can be done!
Graduated HSU December 1999, with a BA in Studio Arts. Haven't done real art since. Moved to Redding.
April of 2000, Mom died of brain cancer, which presented itself quite quickly. 9 months from a clear MRI after sudden seizures to an MRI showing a tumor that looked like someone poured tar into her brain, filling convolutions. Inoperable. Some ugly stuff surrounding. So I was an orphan at 26. Mom was 52.
April 2001, moved to Sacramento because I got a job with the State Treasurer's Office.
July of 2001, I found a website that I'm still part of, h2g2. The chicken articles I've written, both the big ol' overview one and the personal account one, are both posted to there. Thanks to h2g2, I have friends on every continent except South America and Antarctica, though most are in the UK.
Late July/early August 2002, first ever flight to meet some folks from h2g2. First time on the East Coast (landed in NY, meet-up in Lancaster, PA). Went to Hershey Park, found out why everyone told me I was crazy for going to Pennsylvania for an outdoor activity in August. Was assured by locals it was less humid than usual, due to drought...
July 2003, on the anniversary of my joining h2g2, no less, Faith was born. Online, she is also known as PaperKid (originally PaperBaby). She's starting a blog right now--the first post isn't written yet, but she is getting the About Me bit written (nice and anonymous).
March 2004, lost Daddy Bob. He was 74. No one had expected him to outlive Mom.
March 2005, lost Grandma.
December 2005, moved to Klamath.
May 2006, moved to Crescent City.
September 2006, started working for the school district as an IA (temporary until January 2007, permanent since.)
Summer 2007 started househunting.
February 2009, Kenna Grace (goes by Grace--Kenna is for my dad, Kenneth, who went by his middle name, Edmund--could not think of a not-ugly way to feminize Edmund) is born. Known as Notepad online.
April 2012, finally got the keys to the house we'd finally found that we could actually get a large enough loan for.
I must thank you guys for this thread. It has given me hope that I might be able to hatch my own eggs soonish. Between this thread and the "Great egg shipping experiment" I am starting to feel more comfortable ordering/incubating eggs!
I must thank you guys for this thread. It has given me hope that I might be able to hatch my own eggs soonish. Between this thread and the "Great egg shipping experiment" I am starting to feel more comfortable ordering/incubating eggs!
It is a great thread with good people, so any questions just ask! But did I hear you right? Doing the homework before trying first?? Bravo! Usually it's the other way around, lol...
I may not have anything to hatch with you next week! Another one, that was perfectly alive and kicking around last night, has now quit! I hate this batch of eggs! Down to 3/18 and my temps and humidity have been spot on. So I know it had to be the shipping!
I had to move the lavender Orrington from the broader to the grow out pen yesterday as they were inciting all the others to pick on the baby leg bars. They are able to get food and water now. Poor little chick's.
I manhandle my broody's... if they are too vicious, they get broke... my good ones let me do anything I need to and they get to brood more chicks, lol...