The Lamb Must Die!

Spirit of the West

First, a big congratulations to Country Goalie for winning yesterday's caption contest! I'll be needing your contact information, dear...my email link is over there to the right.

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A while back, City Boy bought me a lamb. It was white. It was cute. Downright adorable. And so sweet of him to think of me.

However, the lamb must die.

The news of Darling's and my plan to consume the lamb upset City Boy. But Darling and I were hungry; it couldn't be helped. I mean, just how long did he expect me to keep it, anyway? Besides, it was Darling's idea. She's long been a lover of lamb, and the thought of this one just hanging around, doing nothing productive, was driving her crazy. And not just her. I must admit to having a bit of a craving myself.

Why the lamb, you ask? Why not some stranger from the supermarket, who's face we'd not grown accustomed to?

Because we were having a chocolate craving, that's why!

Pesky little lamb has been taking up space and not pulling his weight far too long. Time to die, little lamb!

Darling quickly removes the packaging

The little lamb is clueless as to his future

Darling points out that he is defective, therefore should not be kept around. Look! The backs of his ears are pink!

I think he suspects something; he's claiming to be a Japanese poodle...

It doesn't take Darling long to suck off the feet and seal his fate

Mmmm....lamb is luscious!

Look, Mom, a puppet!

How are we going to split the head evenly?

Ah...that works!

And that was the end of the lamb. City Boy is still in mourning. He misses seeing the lamb looking at him in the morning, I guess. But Darling and I are not feeling the least bit guilty. Nope! Not in the least.

Redneck Vampire Attacks Trailer Park

Photo Caption!

This photo will be used (most likely) in the Wild Horse Calendar, as well as on note cards and t-shirts. Winner gets a set of notecards; everyone who enters will have their name put into a drawing for the calendar once all the photos are selected.

This particular print is already on a Year at a Glance calendar, mugs and more at the Mustang Fever Store. Good luck!

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After picking Darling up from school this afternoon, we stopped at Dodson’s for a quick snack. Walking past the check out stands I spotted one of those…er…newspapers. You know the kind; Alien Invades Body of Kitten, or Giant Sea Turtle Eats Empire State Building. Today’s attention grabbing headline was Redneck Vampire Attacks Trailer Park. Which left Darling and I wondering, are all you rednecks out there okay?

Before becoming distracted by redneck vampires, Darling was telling me about her day at school. “Mom, those kids have the worst grammar. I was walking past this girl who was headed to the office. Someone was asking her why she was going there. You know what she said? ‘I ain’t got no period’.” I looked at Darling, who suddenly realized how that sentence sounded. “So, sounds like a poor choice of words as well as poor grammar,” I said as we walked past the redneck vampire headline.

Darling was now laughing. Yes, she agreed, it was a rather poor choice of words. “But it gets worse, Mom. Kids were asking me what my shirt said. And they hadn’t heard of STYX! Mom! They didn’t know who Styx was! Can you believe it? Next thing you know, they’ll be saying they’ve never heard of the Beatles or Elton John!” A travesty, to be sure. Darling has been spending far too much time in the company of her oldies loving, Grammar Nazi brother, it would appear, to fit in nicely with her peers.

We were disappointed to find that our favorite glass bottled sodas were out of stock and had to settle for the plastic variety. Darling wanted chips. “Off to the pitchfork isle!”

I wanna be a Redneck Vampire and attack a trailer park!

ps...have you noticed the counter? Less than 2000 hits to go. I'm building up the prize basket as you read this!

Super Chick, the Movie

Okay, it's not exactly an action packed, super hero kind of movie. I mean, I tried tying a little cape around one of their necks, but it just didn't work like I'd envisioned it. So then we tried a shell, but it gave the chick a rather turtle-ish look, and the other chicks just laughed...

It's no secret that a domestic goddess I am not. And just to help solidify my claim to kitchen shame, I tried to burn up my tea kettle the other morning. My morning ritual is stumbling out of bed, starting the water, then pulling up the blog. I wait for the whistle and go make myself a cup of hot chocolate.

But as I was sitting here, completely consumed in photo shop, I realized that it'd been several minutes, and I hadn't heard my whistle. So I peeked out the door to the kitchen, and what did I see?

FLAMES!

Okay, not the first time, and probably not the last, that I've seen fire in the kitchen. This time the outside of the tea kettle was roasting nicely. I rather like the new color; gives it a rather vintage look, don't you think?

My 'new' vintage tea kettle.

Don't forget that tomorrow is Winsday! Plus, an update on The Screamer.

I'm going to go try to microwave water now in hopes of getting my morning chocolate fix. Cross you fingers that I don't set the microwave on fire!

For your viewing pleasure, a few pictures of the chicks as they were hatching out this afternoon. Because it can take up to 24 hours between the first and last egg, and because there are still several eggs left that have yet to crack open, I'll be leaving the contest open until this evening. Tomorrow's post will give you the total count.

A new chick emerges from it's egg while it's sibling looks on.

It takes several hours for a newborn chick to go from slimey to fluffy.

One of the new black chicks

If you've ever wondered how newborn chicks can be shipped at a day old, spending hours in a box without food or water, it's because they have consumed the yolk of the egg prior to hatching. They don't need food for the first 24 hours. Too bad our own babies aren't like that, eh? Can you imagine getting a nice, long nap after you've struggled with labor for hours and hours, with no midnight or 2 am feeding to interupt you? Some days I think perhaps chickens are a little brighter than we give them credit for.

If you take a look at the middle picture, you'll see the egg on the bottom right has a crack in it. Again, another small sign that perhaps chickens are superior to humans. Not only does the mother hen not have to feed her young 'uns that first 24 hours, but she never had to go through labor! These little chicks have spent hours pecking away at their shells in an effort to come into this world. And their mother is happily setting in a nest of clean hay without a single contraction.

Before the eggs begin to hatch, you can hear the chicks peeping. By the time City Boy came home from work yesterday, they were going pretty good! When I got up this morning, there was one wet black chick. The last chick to hatch was a few hours ago. It's not looking promising for a 100% hatch rate, as we're not hearing peeping from any of the remaining eggs. But you can never tell.

Here's the thing I find interesting about this hatch; all of the eggs were blue. They all were layed by blue (black) hens. We've got three roosters; two of which are blue. So how many blue chicks have we got? Only half of what has hatched! Since I'm clueless on sexing chickens, I'll just have to wait for them to get a bit older before I can tell which ones are hens. I'll be keeping the blue hens to add to the flock and selling the lighter colored ones at the farmer's market. I know there were a couple of you interested in getting some chicks; there just aren't enough of them to keep themselves warm during shipping with this hatch. Perhaps a bit later, when the weather perks up a bit?

Now, Darling got some short videos, but will have to wait until tomorrow, along with the final head count!