Chickens! In cool tinted specs!
A chicken’s vision is weighted toward the red/orange and away from blue/green. Makes sense when you remember their ancestors were woodland creatures and, then as now, they peck a living by spotting edible seeds and insects in grass and leaves. The downside is the sight of red, red chicken blood can make a flock go cannibal. In a big flock, little injuries happen and may not be noticed until it is Too Late. It starts with a peck and ends with…everyone eating Mabel alive.
So this guy invented red-tinted chicken specs that effectively make a chicken colorblind. They’re hinged. When the chicken leans forward, the lenses swing away and the bird can see normally. On the ground, where the food is.
Yes, they work. No, you can’t buy them any more. They’re mounted on a chicken’s beak by inserting a pin through the nostrils. It probably doesn’t hurt, but you know how people are about these things.
These days, they do the same job by beak trimming. A blunt beak isn’t good for plucking feathers (which is usually how a chicken gets the injury that leads to blood that leads to tragedy). Used to be, this was a pretty awful practice. There is feeling in the beak as it gets closer to a chicken’s face. These days, though, they have a neat procedure where they run a laser across the beak of a young bird, which cuts the blood vessels and the tip of the beak later falls off.
Make sure to follow the link and watch the lefthand video (it shows funny chickens in spectacles, not having stuff put through their nostrils).
March 13, 2018 — 8:08 pm
Comments: 16
It finally happened to me
I thought it would never happen to me. I’m not one of those people who takes her phone to the loo and watches Gone with the Wind on the throne. I didn’t even remember the silly thing was in my pocket until I heard it >plonk< into the swirling waters of Flushing Stream.
It’s…okay. I peeled off the case and the seal and put the whole lot on the radiator for a few hours. Works okay. Looks kind of wonky.
The video is sort of de-interlaced and I have a spooky purple vignette around the edges of the screen, but only sometimes. I don’t know, is that residual moisture or actual damage? Doesn’t matter. I’m not due for a new phone yet and I’m kind of attached to this one.
Also, I just now tried to update my plugins so y’all can preview comments again, and the preview plugin broke the blog. I nuked the plugin from the control panel and it’s working again, but you still can’t preview. But I think you can edit! Will that do?
March 12, 2018 — 10:45 pm
Comments: 15
Ommmmm…
We blew a…gasket? Washer? Something in the dish washer input line last night. Water everywhere. Until the plumber comes, I’m doing dishes by hand.
I don’t mind, to be honest. For a few days anyway. It’s kind of Zen.
My mother, who was an aggressive proto-feminist, used to say that washing dishes made her feel a direct connection to all the women in her ancestry. I don’t know about that. I can tell you for sure some of our foremothers were too snooty and high-falutin’ to wash their own dishes and some, I would guess, were too slatternly. And if you go back far enough, some probably just squatted on their haunches and drank straight out of the crick.
I know I do.
She wouldn’t live in a house that didn’t have a window over the sink, so she could look out and daydream. I have one, but it’s dark now.
Anyway, nothing planned for the weekend but dish washing, chicken painting and (yes) more yogurt making (that’s going really well, thanks for all the encouragement). Have a good weekend, whatever you may do!
March 9, 2018 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 15
Happy International Women’s Day
Pictured: International Women’s Day march and general lady strike in Spain.
What the hell is that gesture supposed to represent? The Wall of Hoo-Hah? The Sea of Poon? “I self-identify as a giant hole”?
I wish women would make their minds up about this stuff. Like, I want you to see me for a brains and, hey, have you seen my pussy hat?
Anyway, the slogan for this Spanish thing was, “if we stop, the world stops.” But, ummm…things seemed pretty much normal here. I’m guessing nothing much ground to a halt anywhere, even in Spain.
March 8, 2018 — 10:46 pm
Comments: 12
The case for the prosecution rests, M’lud
Sorry. Got jammed up tonight (if you’re impressed with the post I didn’t post, you should see the work I didn’t work!).
I leave you with this iconic image and remind that the avian asshole on the right is a European robin and the poor birdie on the left is an innocent blue tit. I’m telling you, they’re a menace. A tiny, beautiful menace.
Teehee! Blue tit!
March 7, 2018 — 10:51 pm
Comments: 13
If a tree falls in the forest…
There’s a lot going on over here. I wish I could tell you more about it, but the only accurate news we get is word of mouth. Or tweet of Twitter, as it were.
The map is pinched from Katie Hopkins’ Twitter feed. It’s a map of all the ‘gas explosions’ London has had lately. The little Islamic symbols on the markers is because Islams are super, super unlucky with their natural gas services.
The big one recently may actually have been an illegal moonshine still. We can’t know. We don’t have a national press.
That supermarket that was burned to the ground in Dublin? The perps we saw in the videos didn’t look Irish, but what do we know? They’ve made nine arrests and released no names. I can’t imagine why.
[edit: names released. Sounds like mostly Irish boys].
If you follow the link above to the Belfast Telegraph, it even says “Unverified social media footage appeared to show looting at a Lidl store in the west of the city, as well as heavy machinery being used to damage the property.” That’s it. That’s all they have for reportage. Unverified social media footage is all we got.
Also from Ireland: their new Prime Minister is looking to boost the population of Ireland by a million migrants. Current population: 4.8 million. I can’t wait for all the stories we won’t ever hear as a result of THAT.
Addendum: Everything back to normal, except I had a squintillion emails to deal with.
March 5, 2018 — 10:24 pm
Comments: 10
…and that should be the end of it…
It snew pretty much all day today, but that’s it. That’s the end of it. It’s a good ten degrees warmer and we’re expecting rain overnight. By Monday, it should be a distant memory.
I hope. That got tiresome after the first couple of days. The wind was from an unusual quarter, so my toasty little workroom wasn’t. I didn’t really have any warm options other than bed and a book. Which is excellent…for a while.
I’ve seen this much snow here before — no more than four inches at any one time, I reckon — but I’ve not seen weather this cold, snowy and windy for the best part of a week before.
Between you and me, one of my biggest fears is that we’re headed for another little ice age. This isn’t how I picture my twilight years.
Good weekend and stay warm, everyone!
March 2, 2018 — 10:18 pm
Comments: 19
Robin on the chicken house
The robin here is a European robin (Erithacus rubecula). There are lots of other birds called robin redbreast in the world. Our own American one is a very different beastie, actually a breed of thrush with the charming designation Turdus migratorius.
Brits love they robins. It’s one of the few birds that stick around for the whole Winter. Hence they frequently feature on Christmas cards, which puzzled me mightily at first.
They’re cheeky little peckerheads, shaped like chickadees. Red breasted tennis balls. The classic picture is a robin on a spade handle, because they follow gardeners turning earth, looking for worms. I always know where Jack is in the garden, because our robing follows him around and yells at him.
We’re probably on our thirtieth robin by now, but we always have one and they all look the same to me when I chase them off the chickens’ food.
They are not shy. They’re fiercely territorial; they’ll fight to the death with other robins and take on much bigger birds. In fact, I strongly suspect if we could understand and speak robin, we’d find them the most horrible little assholes in the bird kingdom. But awwwwwww, aren’t they cute?
Uncle B took this picture in the garden today. It’s not his usual razor sharp focus because the little bastard was hopping around and wouldn’t pose.
Another day off work today. In fact, I doubt I’ll get in for the rest of the week. Tonight is the last night in the twenties, but it’s not much warmer tomorrow and the wind is going to double into the 40 mph range. Then Friday the wind dies down and heavy snow is forecast.
It’s the wind that’s the problem for us. It’s blowing hard from an unusual quarter, right across an enormous sheep field, picking up snow and landing it in our garden. Our central heating can’t handle it, so I’ve had to pile up in bed under the electric blanket.
I’m trying real hard to look sad about that..
February 28, 2018 — 8:27 pm
Comments: 15
No, in fact, I did NOT go to work today
Indeed, it snew. I reckon we got about three inches, but bitterly cold so it’s icing over fast. More on the way. The roads are clear, but I doubt the bike path is. Luckily, I’m not due back until Thursday.
I’ve had to replace the chicken’s water twice today. I will allow, it’s stupidly funny watching a chicken try to drink ice (that look of puzzlement!), but none of my chickens set foot outside the house today. Cold, plus three of them have never seen that white stuff before. They want no part of this nonsense.
Charlotte snuck out when Uncle B went to stock up on coal and wood and he snapped this picture of her walking in his footsteps. Charlotte is the elderly cat, you may remember, who was horribly mauled by…something back in the Spring. I was sure we would lose her.
Gosh, I wish people aged like cats. Here she is old, scarred, krunky…and looking exactly the same as she did when she was young and strong and padding around in the snow in Rhode Island.
February 27, 2018 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 10
Comes the beast…!
They’re calling it the Beast from the East. It’s a storm roaring up from Portugal that’ll hit tonight. Or Friday night. Really, they’ve been awfully confusing about it.
This one is aimed squarely at the Southeast. The high wind and low temperatures are here already. They’ve been here a few days and it’s been miserable.
Scotland is laughing their sporrans off because we have traffic chaos and the first flakes haven’t fallen yet. But, honestly, it ain’t the weather you’ve got, it’s the weather you usually get and we here in the sunny South are woefully unprepared for this kind of thing.
If I wake up in the morning and I have to go to work, I’m going to be pissed.
February 26, 2018 — 8:16 pm
Comments: 20