Family Funk

Chicken Cam: 2 Months

On the #pandemicchickens’ 2 month birthday, TW spent some time in the coop photographing them individually. And, not just because she was trying to get shots that would help chicken experts determine breed or to help us count the roos. (Ugh.)

Here are three videos from 7/1/20. Don’t bother with sound, TW doesn’t really talk to them all that much so there’s nothing to hear except wind, Skeeter whining to get in (or get TW out), and random chicken noises.

Fuzzylegs the Silkie doesn’t like to be held as much as we’d like…

Grey Stuff saw something shiny (in TW’s eye??)

Longer video of TW and the chickens.

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Happier Big Bird

Now that Big Bird is in Sesame St, right next to the full flock, he’s a lot happier than he was when he was in the pack n play in the Florida Room. He was so starved for a flock that when I gave him a mirror, he wouldn’t stop looking at it. At all. Not for a second. And if he did, and something (people) scared him, he ran back to the mirror. It was sad.

He acted much that same way in those first few days in Sesame St and he’s still flighty and doesn’t really love anyone at all – but he’s so much happier and so much more calm. He even runs to the gate to see us when we come out for a visit.

Here’s a wee video of Big Bird scratching around on 5/31/20. (There is no audio on his coop camera – not that he makes much noise at all, anyway.)

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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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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.

Chicken Videos? Read More »

Dippin’ Dots

We’re heading to Orlando for Free Play Florida and decided we might as well stay a bit longer and go to Disney World. Except that didn’t work out (don’t ask) and we suddenly found ourselves with Universal Studios season passes.

Since I’ve never been to Universal and TW hasn’t been in a zillion years, we started researching the rides, the shows, the merch, and of course… the food. Turns out, Universal is very different from WDW. Very, very different.

There are a lot fewer blogs dedicated to Universal Studios. There are a lot fewer videos. The quality of both is considerably lower than the blogs and videos about WDW. It’s been kind of confusing and a little frustrating.

Rather than be frustrated, I gave up on the search for blogs and videos and went to the pros — the Lines Chat for Universal Studios. That didn’t quite turn out as expected.

I asked the Liners, “What are your favorite snacks at Universal?” The answers were… not inspiring.
– Popcorn (not because it’s special or exceptional popcorn, either.)
– Ice cream in Diagon Alley (great – but no specific flavors or anything about it except that it’s good ice cream.)
– Potato Jackets (ok now we’re talking… this sees a lot more like something someone would recommend at Disney World.)
– Candy in Harry Potter World (umm, errr, ok. Sure. Fine.)
– Dippin’ Dots!!! (I believe there were a number of !!! added to that recommendation.)

And that was the list. That’s it. Those of you who have been to Disney World immediately understand my confusion, my frustration, and my feeling of dread.

This is not going to be ANYTHING like Disney World if all I’ve got to look forward to is Dippin’ Dots…

Except, I can’t actually remember the last (only?) time I’ve had Dippin’ Dots. Maybe they’re good. Better than I think they are?

We saw a Dippin’ Dots cooler in the little local pharmacy last week, I was tempted to buy some and find out. But no… I’m going to wait until I’m at Universal and I’m going to order those Dippin’ Dots and I’m going to come back and tell y’all what an amazing snack they are. And in December, I’m going to ONLY eat Dippin’ Dots and ignore all of the fancy snacks offered at Disney World. I’m sure of it. There’s a reason Dippin’ Dots are one of the BEST snacks in all of Universal Studios…

* Important: The Liners absolutely provided the information I was looking for (not just about snacks but about rides and shows, too.) If you’re going to Disney World, I highly recommend you subscribe to Touring Plans (it’s not that expensive) and download the Lines app. You might not need it for Universal, but for WDW – it’s a must.

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Pokemon Go: Gen 2 Is Coming!

Yes, I’m still playing Pokemon Go. Yes, I like playing Pokemon Go. YES, I’m very excited about the addition of Gen 2 Mon to the game.

I finally reached the point this week where I was at the mercy of the egg … and some extended walking of some Mon to eventually get enough candies for evolution. Being at the mercy of the egg is not a fun situation to be in. When the only Pokemon you need are those that come in 2K or 10K eggs… well, your odds are slim. And that’s disheartening.

So yippee, Gen 2!!

I also thought it might be interesting to me, later, to know where I was in the game when the Gen 2 Monsters arrived. So here are some of my stats.

I’m a little more than halfway through Level 31.
I’ve caught a total of 6,157 PM.
I’ve walked 1,111.7 KM.
I’ve hatched 375 eggs.
Evolutions, 1262.
I have 12 gold medals, 11 silver medals, 4 bronze medals. (And one not to medal level, yet. Total medals available to me right now are: 28.)

Missing from my Dex in Gen 1 are:
– Hitmonchan
– Dragonite (I need 63 darn candies)
– The regional Pokemon (sigh)

Missing from the launch of the babies at the end of 2016 are:
– Magby
– Cleffa
– I’m 5 candies away from evolving the Togepi.

So that’s where I am right now. I cannot wait to catch all of Gen 2. (Not to mention the last two from Gen 1… that darn Hitmonchan, man. Sheesh.)

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#fake

I wrote this a long time ago, on BlogHer, and since the formatting is broken and the content type isn’t one that’s used any longer, I decided to republish it here. People still ask about the history of “#fakecat” and “#fakehusband” and it’s so much faster to just point them to a post than to try and explain it.”

Lots of people are wondering why @sassymonkey’s husband is called the fake husband (or #fakehusband, since hashtags became a thing.) Since I’m the one who started this madness, I should be the one to explain it.

It’s a long and complicated story and it’s a bit of a joke. It’s also not something you should feel left out for not knowing. So, now you’re going to know.

Way back, years and years ago, @sassymonkey started talking about a cat. Her cat. Her cat named Piper. She talked about this cat constantly. She was beginning to sound like a crazy cat kid (not lady because lord, she was young back then.) She talked about this cat on message boards, on blogs, and possibly in chat rooms.

Some of us (me) asked to see photos of this cat that we heard so much about. No photos appeared. No photos appeared. No photos appeared. Thus… fake cat. She was LYING about this cat just because, well, just because people online sometimes lie about stuff. I know, shocking, right?

Finally, after YEARS and YEARS of hearing about this fake cat, she produced a picture or two. Well ya know, anyone can find a picture or two of a cat. We (I) was sure this was just some fake cat she’d made up and found photos of. No matter that she has since produced dozens and hundreds of pictures of aforementioned fake cat, and some video. The cat remains fake. Once fake – always fake.

Flash forward a few years and suddenly, @sassymonkey starts spewing stories about going away. On vacation. To foreign countries that aren’t Canada or the US with some man. Named “L”… who eventually became “Lee.”

Well ya know, people make this stuff up all of the time on the internets. And who in their right mind goes on vacation, to foreign countries, with a man named Lee who she’d never met before the day she told us about this trip? Because lord knows, if she had not told us (me!) about this man before announcing this trip, he was not freaking real.

Again, she is making this stuff UP. No matter that there were photos of @sassymonkey with a man in foreign countries. You can get a guy to do anything, pretty easily, when you’re a woman like @sassymonkey (or any woman actually.) So… this man, obviously a FAKE boyfriend.

And when they bowed to the freaking patriarchy and tried to kill me… he became the FAKE husband (#fakehusband.) And so he shall remain. Once a fake, always a fake. If she starts spouting stories about fake kids… well that might really kill me. But they’ll always be fake, no doubt about it.

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The KonMari Method: CDs, DVDs, Video Games, Etc.

So, I thought we’d just go ahead and go through this entire category and just get – it – DONE. Silly me.

I ambushed myself within about three minutes because I’d forgotten about the 45s. The moment I put my hand on the 45 case, I knew there was no way this category was going to go smoothly. There’s so much “sentimental” carry-over with this stuff that it just… yea. No. It did not go well.

KonMari Problems… Oy

A photo posted by Denise Tanton (@dtanton) on

I immediately put the 45s into the sentimental category, made the decision that albums would wait ’til the end, too, and moved on. I waded through CDs pretty quickly and TW went along behind me and we had quite a lot of CDs to discard. Except, TW put them in a bag to send to the nursing home for her sister. I’m not sure that was a smart move, we’re just going to end up with them again, aren’t we?

TW released her old cassettes with not much trouble — we don’t have a cassette player, after all.

Then we got to the DVDs and VHS tapes and we were lost. I left behind hundreds of videos when we moved here and I was having a very hard time releasing any of those this time. The ones I kept 7 years ago were the BEST ones. They’re still the best ones. So, I kept most of them and will let my big kids go through them at Christmas and maybe we’ll be able to discard some more.

Though we kept a lot, we also got rid of a lot but we sent most of them to the nursing home.

Then, the little girls looked at the Wii games and RJ said discard them all. Elly took a few back to her father’s house and would like our Wii controllers because theirs are broken (so when I find those, I’ll be sure to pass them on.)

In the end, we were able to discard 15 Wii games, 73 videos went to the nursing home and we have a bunch of VHS tapes to donate (probably around 20), 50 music cds were discarded and we have a whole spindle of black cds/dvds we can donate. We also have a half dozen discs that we’re not sure of. They have stuff on them but we’re not sure what’s on them, so I need to find a laptop with a CD player (or use TW’s laptop) and take a look at those before we discard.

All things considered, I’m OK with how we did with the discards (as long as the nursing home giveaways don’t come back to us!) We’ll revisit the category again in December and again when we do sentimental items and I’m sure a few more things will go, then. Probably.

The KonMari Method: CDs, DVDs, Video Games, Etc. Read More »