A Farewell to 2017
Oh, shoot — I had written up a post and then I guess I closed the window without heeding the error message and lost it. Boo. Try again.
My 2017, actually, was fine. Pretty good year. Weasel seal of approval. Everything’s turning up mustelids. Let us hope for a perfectly acceptable 2018.
We’re going to drink champagne and watch the fireworks come out of the next village over, though it’s terribly windy tonight. Happy new year — see you on the other side!
December 31, 2017 — 10:31 pm
Comments: 8
This broody image of sheep on a hillside
I’m posting! On a Saturday!
What the hell, I’m having fun paging back through the year’s posts. It’s not like it’s effort…
December 30, 2017 — 9:51 pm
Comments: 9
The heady taste of weasel
This photo was taken at a local fete in July, when we ducked into the tent of an owl rescue during a downpour.
I keep believing I see this sweet bird everywhere, but those are different barn owls from different animal rescue groups. They all seem to have this happy attitude to being stroked (which is, no doubt, why wildlife rescues trot them out to help fundraise).
No kidding, I bet I’ve been nibbled by five little barn owls since this picture was taken.
December 29, 2017 — 10:11 pm
Comments: 10
d’awwww
Baby hedgehog. BABY HEDGEHOG.
This was from June, of course. We haven’t seen one lately. I brought the outdoor cameras in when the weather turned (they’re wired, not wifi. Leaving windows cracked was chilling up the place). But hedgehogs are very territorial and you wouldn’t expect to see more than one around anyway. So I’m told.
They’re also so famous for being run over in the road, it used to be a regular comic gag. See, their response to a predator is to curl up in a defensive ball. This is a bad response to a Land Rover.
December 28, 2017 — 7:30 pm
Comments: 14
The 9 types of comb recognized by the American Poultry Association
The sharp-eyed among you will note that the picture is eight types of comb. I had to look this up. The ninth is the silkie comb, not pictured because silkies have a head full of poofy feathers and you can’t actually see their combs.
I screwed up. This little daily useless-posting exercise was supposed to be a look back at 2017, but I guess I clicked the wrong link because this thing is from 2016. But, dammit, I did some research.
Also, 99.99% of chickens have the single comb, so really this is a picture of a normal chicken and seven legally recognized freaks.
December 27, 2017 — 10:08 pm
Comments: 9
Happy Boxing Day!
I got arty things for Christmas, for I’ve been arting all day.
The weather does this strange thing here: the wind will suddenly leap from 20 mph to 40+ mph, stay that way for a three or five hours, then just as suddenly die back again. It did it on Christmas Day, it’s doing it now, and I see it’s in the forecast for tomorrow.
Uncle B just went out to secure the tarp on the woodpile and found the wind had actually blown quite large logs down the drive. So I’d say the 40 mph is a lie. It must be upwards of 50, anyway.
It’s all very exciting. It’s like being in a ship on the high sea.
December 26, 2017 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 4
Hope yours was as nice as ours
Especially nice tree this year. We picked it out growing in the field and tied a tag with our names to it, for later cutting down. I really felt liked I’d marked a perfectly nice organism for death.
Cheery, me.
It’s blowing an absolute gale out there, so I’ll sign off before I get signed off. Hope you had a good one and Sandy Claws was as good to you as he was to us!
December 25, 2017 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 11
Here we go!
Don’t forget to follow Santa on Norad.
Huh. Y’all Americans kind of get Santa lasties, don’t you?
December 24, 2017 — 7:16 pm
Comments: 10
At my local supermarket today
Reindeer. Not pictured: a sheep, a barn owl, a donkey, a pygmy goat and some kind of tiny, weird African cow. It was weirdly Christmassy.
And yes, it was pandemonium. Though this is an independent supermarket, not a huge chain, so it wasn’t like the seventh circle of hell.
This particular market can be super expensive on some things. They had a turkey there for £80 (that’s about $120).
We got ours from a local butcher and paid £42 (about $63) for a ten-pound turkey. Though you can get them cheaper from Aldi, or frozen, or a turkey roll.
What’s the Christmas turkey up to in the States?
December 23, 2017 — 7:13 pm
Comments: 17
There is nothing like a dame
I finally got to go to the pantomime. British panto, where the hero is always played by a girl, the dame is always a man, and it just gets sillier from there. I’ve been meaning to drag Uncle B to one ever since I moved here, but never got the timing right.
It was indeed very silly and lots of fun and now it feels extra super Christmassy! Have a good weekend, y’all. I’ll probably continue shitposting until Christmas, because why not?
December 22, 2017 — 9:57 pm
Comments: 7