Chicks!

The coop is assembled and awaiting the moment our new chicks are big enough to move outside. Jeanine and I took a trip into the hinterlands of the extreme East Bay to buy a trio of little fluffballs - two Americanas and one Australorp. Right now, they're inside where it's warm.

Here's the coop:



And here's Henrietta the Americana, checking Facebook moments after using my keyboard as a toilet:



Currently listening to: incessant peeping.

Bats and Birds

It's well into Spring, and the days dawn with an onslaught of birdsong. This morning, as I was outside listening, bats circled my head as they prepared to call it a night. It's weird hearing the morning birds while being surrounded by bats. In amongst all of the bird sounds was the amorous gobbling of an excited turkey. I wandered over to the edge of camp in an attempt to spot him, but saw a small rabbit instead.



It wasn't until later that I saw him in all of his glory, doing his best to impress a female who shut him down pretty quickly by nonchalantly wandering off. I almost felt bad for him as he strutted around in all of his finery with his strangely ineffective tail feathers fanned out. Maybe his gobbling was off-key or something.

Earlier, the toad who lives out by the parking lot was hanging out on the walkway, waiting for unwary insects. World's cutest ambush predator.



Behind me, a box containing a chicken coop awaits our attention.

Currently listening to: Dark Dark Dark "What I Needed"

Where Does The Time Go, and What Does It Do When It Gets There?

I feel like I've adopted a life of indolence lately. Everything is running smoothly and great big chunks of weeks and months just slip by. The good thing about this is that I'm happy, but the bad thing is that I feel like I haven't done anything truly creative in eons. I've been more or less ignoring this blog too.

I haven't been completely slothful, of course. Things are growing in the garden, and there is always other yard work to be done. That's suburban living for you. Yesterday marks our one-year anniversary of getting handed the keys to our house. I thought about blogging about this then, but my slothfulness got the better of me and we went and saw Iron Man 3 instead. It was pretty good.

Plans are afoot to populate the yard with chickens. More on this as it happens. In the meantime, we have a new Sandfish to hang out with. Willow named him Mr. Snout. He eats crickets and, surprisingly, bananas. Like our other recent reptilian acquisitions, he prefers to spend his time with a few inches of substrate over his head, which means that we don't see him unless we go digging for him.



Currently listening to: Eitarnora 3" DVD (from the special edition of their CD, "Tall Grasses and Black Ash")