Daily Chicken Cam: Rainy Days
Here’s a short video from 5/29/20. A late afternoon shower rolled in and the #pandemicchickens headed inside for a bit. Click to watch, Rainy Day Coop.
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Animal Issues
Daily Chicken Cam: Tiny Roo
A couple of days ago, I was out at the chicken coops by myself (or maybe with a dog or two, but TW was definitely not with me.) I was working on Big Bird’s roost and rehanging the xylophone when Tiny Roo tried out his crowing on me. It was the most amusing, pathetic little crowing you’ve ever heard in your life and I laughed and laughed. I told TW later that it sounded like a 14 year old who’s voice was just starting to do that cracking thing that it does. Unfortunately, the Coop Cam didn’t seem to catch his performance.
Well this morning I was out at Big Bird’s coop (by myself again) when I heard the distinct sound of a teenage rooster trying to crow. All of the roos were under their coop watching me but none (except Mrs. Kravitz, of course) were standing still so that I could figure out who it was that was making all that ruckus. I was pretty sure it was Tiny Roo but I could not confirm.
So I noted the time and while I waited for everyone to be ready to leave the house, I looked at the main Coop Cam (the only one with sound) to see if that teenager was caught in the act. Within seconds, there he was… Tiny Roo.
Turn on your sound, click this link, and enjoy his serenade. Or his warning. I dunno which it is. But so far, he seems only to crow at me. lol.
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Daily Chicken Cam: 5/28/20
Quick look at the #pandemicchickens going in and out of the coop during another afternoon thunderstorm. (This is Florida, we have those a lot.)
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Chicken Videos?
I have (had? lol) huge plans to blog about chickens… and of course I haven’t quite managed to follow through on those plans. At. All.
I also realized last night that I need some place to upload (save?) videos from the Coop Cams because I can’t afford a subscription to the video hosting service and it only lets you save a week’s worth of videos at one time. This means I’ve lost a LOT of videos because I just plain forgot about that issue.
So… I guess I’m going to have to throw some video onto my blog + short form videos to Insta + medium sized videos to FB if I want a record the #pandemicchickens project. (I also can’t just save the videos to my phone or my iPad because who has room on their devices for that kind of thing? And why have video at all if you aren’t going to SHARE IT with people???)
So… here we go. Click to view and turn up the sound if you want to hear chicken noises!)
A few videos from 5/27/20. Neighbor Frank was interested in chickens + mesh food bag, so that’s really why y’all are getting a bunch of chicken jumping videos first. 🙂
– Chicken Jumping. 5 minute video that includes chickens jumping to reach the produce/snacks inside of a mesh basket.
– Chicken Jumping: Chip the Roo. Very short Video of Chip (the Rooster) jumping for snacks.
– More Chicken Jumping. I edited this one so you can also see Big Bird in the background, over in Sesame St.
– Tiny Roo Jumping. Keep your eye on Tiny, the black rooster.
A Good Day Is Painful
Ouch. My body hurts. TW’s body hurts more.
This is what happens when you’ve had a very full, very good day.
Cleaning house, ours and the prairie dogs. Taking three very hyper (though one was terrified) puppies to the dog park. The dog park that is covered in mud except along the edges where it is still covered in snow.
Bathing and drying three very hyper and tired (not to mention smelly) puppies.
All of the laundry that goes along with all of the cleaning, muddy walking, and bathing.
So tired.
But happy for the exercise, the somewhat clean house, and the sunny day.
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Poor Tarrant, Poor Lola, Poor ME
The showgirl has an ear infection — bacterial and yeast. She was not happy about the vet looking at her VERY swollen and sore ear. Which tells you how bad it is — she is a pretty tough girl and even when skewered with a metal stake while pregnant, she was by all accounts calm and her normal facelicking self. She was not her happy facelicking self during the exam. (Before and after, absolutely.)
TW was not her happy facelicking self either. Oh. Wait. TW doesn’t do that facelicking thing. Sorry, my mistake. She was not happy today though, not at all. Bad oral surgeon. Bad infection. Bad all around.
I was not my happy self either. Rough long work day. Rough long driving everyone to all of the places day. SO darn TIRED. I’m almost looking forward to jury duty next week, that would give me a little break, right? lol.
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Hopeful not Hopeful
For the last few days, I’ve gone into the bedroom toward the end of the day thinking, “gosh, I don’t think Buster ate anything today…” and as I have asked TW, very hopefully, if he was better today — I’ve realized, oh wait… he ate a potato or umm the quilt or … yea. No. He ate things. Sigh.
But, he has eaten fewer things. And we’ve spent a lot less time chasing him through the house yelling, “BUSTERRRRRRRR!”
I’m trying to stay hopeful. Because really, eating a raw potato off of the shelf is not a big deal. And I guess, in the scheme of things, eating some more of my already eaten quilt is not so bad either. It could be, and has been, so much worse.
It feels like this was right about the time last year that Skeeter poodle stopped eating so many of the things… so maybe he’s growing up and improving. A little. Maybe? Maybe? MAYBE?
Yea, this is me still trying to feel hopeful…
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I’m An Ant Killer
TW gave me an ant farm for Christmas because I have always wanted one and never had one.
I was very excited. It’s one of those weird blue gel glowing ant farm thingies. I was so excited that I sent away for my ants the first weekend after Christmas.
TW suggested that was not a good idea because it is winter and the ants probably can’t be shipped in the winter.
Oh. Yea.
Weeks passed and the only response I had from the people I ordered the ants from was “thank you for your order…” so I thought maybe they knew that ants couldn’t be shipped to the frozen bowels of hell (which some people call Chicagoland) in January and they’d just wait to send them in the spring.
It’s been so long since I ordered them that I really almost forgot about them. If it wasn’t for the empty ant farm sitting on my desk, I really would have forgotten about them — but every now and then Buster butt jumps up on the edge of the desk and knocks the ant farm over and I wonder about my ants.
I went out to the mailbox this morning while I was warming up the car. There were three tiny little envelope packages in there. One was some jewelry I ordered as Christmas presents way back last November. (sigh) One was a new iPhone case for TW (because Buster butt ate her other new one last week.) One was… my ants. My very frozen ants.
The outside of the envelope says “Keep away from extreme heat or cold.” Sigh. I think the high between the time the mail arrived and the time I retrieved the mail was about – 9F and the poor things were in that box for a good 16 hours. I’d say that’s extreme cold and from the shape of the poor things in their little tube, I’m guessing they’d agree if ant ghosts could talk.
I’m feeling all sad and guilty about that tube of ants. *sniff* May they RIP.
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I’m Still Craving Roast Chicken
At some point last weekend? Or maybe it was last Friday? Whatever, I don’t remember exactly when… I started to smell … something … every time I was in the office. Something familiar. Something almost… comforting? What was that odor?
It finally occurred to me that it was something like roast chicken or maybe turkey. Huh. Weird. Was TW roasting a chicken for dinner? That would be nice but why was she roasting a chicken so early? Was something going on that meant she needed to cook early? Or we needed to eat early? Or … oh well. Whatever.
I assumed that’s what it was and went on about my day only to discover much later that TW had not really planned anything for dinner and she was most definitely not roasting a turkey.
Huh. What was that odor?
We ended up having pork chops and dressing and some other vegetables that I don’t really remember now and I kind of half decided that the odor in the office might have been dressing. It kind of smells like that and maybe RJ had found the bag of vegan dressing and made herself a pot earlier in the day? Weird but it could happen. RJ likes dressing.
I went about my business trying very hard to forget that the office STILL smelled like… roast chicken? stuffing/dressing? SOMETHING… but after two days, it was getting harder to forget that the office smelled that way.
On the third day, I was pretty much going nuts and had decided that my subconscious was telling me that I needed to roast a chicken or the scent was NOT going to go away. So I made a note to myself to take a chicken out of the freezer.
Later that evening, the dogs were causing a ruckus at the prairie dog cage. Skeeter and Lola barking, Betty banging on the bars, Buster butt banging on the bars. Total mayhem. I went over to shoo the dogs away only to find Buster trying very hard to remove some stalks of celery from the cage and the odor, the one that I thought was roast chicken or stuffing … it was oh so very strong.
Celery. It was celery. Not a chicken roasting. Not dressing/stuffing. Celery.
I cursed and removed all of the celery from the cage because the girls were certainly not eating it. I removed the celery from the mouths of all three dogs (because by that time Buster had successfully removed several stalks) and threw it all away.
I also forbid TW from ever putting celery in the girls’ cages again. It was bad enough that the office smelled like squash for three days the last time she put a half of a butternut squash in their cage but this was worse. The not knowing what the smell was or WHY it was there was so much worse than that. I really had begun to think I was nuts.
It’s been several days since I solved the mystery and cleared out the celery. The office hasn’t smelled like roast chicken in ages.
But, every time I sit down at my desk I think, “Gosh, roast chicken would be really awesome for dinner.”
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Buster’s Not the Only Butt
All of the dogs have been TROUBLE for the last few days. I guess I could blame the warmer weather? They have certainly been excited about being able to stay out for more than 90 seconds without risking frost bite.
Lola, in particular, has been thrilled to mouth off to all of the squirrels and try to climb fences and trees to catch them. Poor thing doesn’t realize that even if she can climb the fence, she’s still 30 feet too low to reach the squirrel.
Skeeter poodle has barked pretty much non-stop, at invisible things — though TW said last night there were coyotes outside. I didn’t see them so maybe Skeeter just somehow told her they were out there?
Buster butt just runs around madly because the other two are excited by stuff. He has no idea what that stuff is but he’s more than happy to help them cause chaos.
It’s not just the running around and barking though.
I’ve found Skeeter eating several things she should not have.
A shoe.
A book.
Some mail that turned out only to be an empty envelope, thankfully.
And… the big one… TW’s brand new leather iPhone wallet that she’d only had for 36 hours. Her brand new leather iPhone wallet that she LOVES. Yep. Destroyed. By Skeeter. Not by Buster. Though it is possible that Buster retrieved it and passed it on to Skeeter to eat. He does that sometimes. Still. She KNOWS BETTER.
Speaking of knowing better… Buster might be learning something…
One of the most frustrating things about Buster butt is that he has not seemed to learn that we are unhappy with him when he eats all of the things. When we yell or stomp our way toward him or do some other thing to try and stop him from eating what he’s eating, he has always just sat there chewing the forbidden item and looking at us like we’re nuts or even wagged his tail thinking we’re coming to play.
For the last couple of days though, he’s made that ashamed face when he sees me coming to retrieve something he shouldn’t have. A couple of times he’s slunk away from what he was headed for when he heard me tell him NO.
I’m telling myself that this is a sign that we’re making progress. It IS a sign we’re making progress, right?
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