Saturday, October 18, 2008

Harriet. The third one is Harriet.

Matilda, Frances and Harriet meet the Great Outdoors. They wouldn't go outside and I (desparately) needed to clean out their coop-- these girls are POOP MACHINES!-- so I finally just grabbed each one and sort of threw her out the door. Each made this awful *squawk* of fear or surprise, then went suddenly silent. I rushed around to the other side to see what they were doing... they had discovered the feed tray and were already eating. Got over the fear fast, it would seem. Tomorrow I'll open the door again and see if today's adventures have lessened the fear of the outdoor-part of the enclosure...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Mah babies!

We finished the chicken house. We bought the chickens: three lovely, 7-week old Buff Orpington chicks. We are now proud... what? Chicken-owners? Chicken farmers? Parents? Sponsors? Co-habitors? I took this photo from an upstairs window, so it's not very good. They spend a lot of time huddled in the doorway like that, pondering the great outdoors. I hope that they soon make the Great Leap into the run, where they can experience grass and bugs and all that. They're already a lot less terrified of me than they were at first, which is promising. Oh, the bravest one is Matilda, the middle one is Francis, and the scaredy-chicken is as yet unnamed. They look identical to me, so I hope that either their personalities stay constant, or they don't mind switching names occasionally. For more about the coop, it's all on the other blog.


Edit: Frances, not Francis. They're all girl chickies... I hope.

Friday, October 10, 2008

So, uh, yeah. Everything's all crazy, somehow... stock market blah blah blah, election blah blah blah. Wow look at all that news. I keep switching between obsessively watching the news, and deciding that I CAN'T WATCH ANY MORE NEWS and turning to Futurama or The Office instead. I tried to watch the presidental debate Tuesday, but it was boring and McCain was annoying me too much to continue. "My friend" this and "my friend" that... Just saying it doesn't make it true, sir.

Speaking of which, this is a SUPER-FUN time to be working in the financial and/or banking industry, let me tell you. Not that I can tell you all that much, since I can't really talk about work issues, but not fun: not even at one of the good, stable banks. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference to be in an industry a little further removed, since everybody seems to be getting hit with the same stuff.

I'm getting my chickens on Saturday. Don has finished the chicken coop and it is lovely-- picture to follow soon, I hope. Everything is moving so slowly on the house, as Don and I try to squeeze things in on weekends; half the time he's working weekends, too, or at least part of it.

Friday, October 03, 2008

And I stayed up past my bedtime for this?

If Don and I had been but a bit more prepared to watch the Vice-Presidential debate last night, we could have turned it into a drinking game: take a swig for every time Sarah Palin said any one of the following:

"Darn right!"
"Moms and dads"
"Soccer" or "hockey"
"Kitchen table"
"Ain't"

...Or, every time she dropped a 'g': gettin', makin', movin'. I mean sure, we would have been totally sloshed by the time the debate ended, but we're both willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of good politics.

Personally, I found it annoying and patronizing. Is this what "main-stream" (or is it "main-street") America wants: someone who uses the littlest words possible so as not to confuse the audience (or to keep from betraying the fact that she may not know the bigger words either?), talks as though nobody listening to her has the education or intelligence to comprehend the big issues? I know that I'm not "mainstream", for various reasons. But I can't be the only viewer (voter) last night that felt insulted by her attitude towards us, rather than warm-and-fuzzy. Either she's really talking down to the voter, or this really is "her": either insulting or terrifying, depending how ya see it. Don'tcha know.

Edited to add: We could have used 'maverick' for a chaser...