Temperature hasn’t seen the happy side of 40 since I don’t remember when. Ghost spent yesterday at S&L’s house and was extremely butthurt when he had to come home this morning. He’s still not speaking to me. Where did I read something about dogs that come with this thing…what did they call it? … Loyalty! Yeah, that’s it. Where can I go shopping for one of these legendary ‘loyal’ dogs? Sheesh. I’ve got to keep LB chained up to keep him from running off to kill things, and Ghost prefers the neighbors. Hurts my widdle feewings.
The ground is frozen. Good news is there’s no special reason to ever go outside – except for those damned chickens, most of whom have forgotten what eggs are. So why am I freezing my ass to go out and renew their food and water again? You know how many eggs I could buy for the price of fifty pounds of pellets? They’d better get with it, is all I’m saying.
On the subject of chickens, there’s one who’s been trying to kiss up to me. The chicks I raised over the summer are the fourth batch we’ve had here, and the first three were all raised in the city and then brought here when they were all feathered out and didn’t need special care. All the chickens from those three batches think I’m the Antichrist. But this summer’s chickens are much less standoffish, or at least they’re not automatically afraid of me. And there’s one in particular who maneuvers herself to get picked up and cuddled. Seriously, she seems to enjoy it. If I’ve got my head in the coop looking for eggs or cleaning out manure, she runs halfway up the ramp till she’s head-high and then coos at me until I pick her up. The other new ones will tolerate being picked up, but this one seeks it out. Which finally settles, I think, one of the mysteries I’ve wondered about, which is that I’ve seen friendly chickens with pet-like behavior – just never around here. Maybe the trick is that they need to be raised from the egg by the same person who’s their caretaker in adulthood. It works for broadbills.
Not that it matters, since I’m still planning to kill her and eat her at some point…
Oh, and by the way? Netflix is now officially destroying the planet. Who knew someone would decide that binge-watching is environmentally irresponsible? Go figure.
No, you’re right. I have nothing to write about today. I’m just sitting inside and watching it snow. Didn’t want to go two days without a post, it sets a bad precedent.
Hope you guys are staying warm. I am.
I did wonder how you were doing when I didn’t see a post earlier. Glad you have friendly chickens at last. It does get tiresome when they always react as if you were the fox. I hand raised a flock once and they followed me like ducklings. Then cried when I shut the gate in their faces. You can’t win. 🙂
Looks like one of the chicks has imprinted on you. 🙂 We got that bad weather up here that started in texas so no more mouthing off about how mild the great white north is. Like you all I;m doing is staying inside where it’s warm and only going out if there is no other alternative.
I am amazed how the circle of life brings me to find so many good people on the web. I was doing a little research for an article I am working on for TZP, an low and behold, I wind up here.
I feel ashamed to complain about being in MI and getting our first real snow of the year, along with ice, temps up to 40 today, but a real mess, car accidents all over.
I am marking your site and will check back again.
Joel’s warm, cuddled up to his chicken friend. 😉
Perhaps the “loyalty” issue with The Boys is reflected in the affection being displayed by your chicken-friend . . . when you raise critters up from birth, they do imprint on you, and The Boys didn’t have that experience? Maybe?
In Ghost’s case that’s almost certainly true. He was a shelter rescue, never even met me until he was over a year old, and he was 3 or 4 when he came to live with me. He has never noticeably bonded with anybody. He’s friendly but not subservient, wants what he wants and resents being forced to do things. More like a cat than a dog.
LB has been with me since he was weaned though he didn’t know me before that. He’s more classically “my” dog in every way, I shouldn’t accuse him of disloyalty. He’s just an impulsive idiot and once he has launched on one of his destructive adventures he can’t hear me anymore.
If you want Ghost and LB to be more “loyal“, you just have to use the correct procedures. I suspect that if you were to polish your boots with bacon grease, both of them would be FAR more fond of you…
}:-]
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