In the  spring I lost my faithful minion Trip. Early this summer we added Peach to our menagerie.

Peach — typical goofy expression

As much as I love the big orange doofus, he’s just not minion material. (Also, he prefers Jim’s company to mine. Curr.)

So… to rectify the lack of a minion for the Magpie Center for World Domination. We have added a second cat.

Meet Diesel. Most often known as Izzy.

Diesel — pondering the great outdoors

Peach and izzyhave learned to get along, sort of. There’s a lot of chasing and stealing the best sleeping spots going on. Until they’re both tired, then they settle down together on the back of the couch.

stop following me already

A new toy.

The newest toy and our next project.

But before we can do anything about that…

We have to fix this.

Yeah, that’s pretty much half of the dash pulled out. Tomorrow night the other half comes out. All because I don’t like cold feet.

There are bits of this truck that are waaaay too far behind other bits.

(Update to the update — Jim got it all done and buttoned back up on Sunday. Good thing too, because there’s snow forecast for tonight.)

 A lazy cat.

Peach in his prefered winter spot.

Work — or not.

NaNoWriMo.

You can find it here.

I’m not actually signed up. Because I’m chicken shit and all that. Mostly because I don’t write novels. At least not with any success. I write short stories. And I plan to write 4 this month. It’s my own little version of NaNoWriMo.

I’ve been working on updates and upgrades and all around tidying to the web sties.

It is unsettling to know that of all the information provided on all my sites and blogs. The thing people most want to know about and to look at are:

the chicken pictures…

sigh.

It’s time for a dog tidy!

Before:

dee-dee before

c-c before

ivan — before

During:

ivan in process

After:

dee-dee and c-c, clean and outside to dry off

ivan smiling

Mz. Frizzle and her brood of 10 are out and about every day now.

Mz. Frizzle and the 10 little Frizzles

The frizzled banty hen has managed to hide out and hatch a handful of chicks.

Jim caught this one out for a snack.

one black chicken, one black chick

Hopefully they will stay in the barn long enough to grow to be too big for the crows to terrorize.

Just for amusement value. This is what life looks like around here in the spring.

who me? no, I never overeat.

Click on the photo to embiggen. Really, it’s worth it. I’ll wait…

And here he is looking a little less goony.

still got hay everywhere

Each summer we have several nests of barn swallows.

Late last week I watched the first of the barn swallows fly across the pasture. This morning I had the first evidence that housekeeping has started.

One of the oldest/biggest nests is perched on top of the flood light over the feed room in the barn.

flood light over the feed room

As you can see it’s a tight fit.

here’s the nest perched on top of the light fizture

This morning I found this little mess on the floor directly underneath the nest. It’s made up of hay loosely joined with mud and a plush lining of chicken feathers.

barn swallow nest

chicken feathers used to line the nest

Usually they just build a new layer on top of last years nest. I suspect this last top layer had to be evicted because there is no more room to build up.

We should see the females arrive soon.

Today was shearing day. There were only 6 animals so it went quickly.

Here’s what the crew looked like before:

the crew all fat and wooly after a snowy winter

Here Jason is shearing the first victim, er Mutton:

Jason shearing Mutton

And here’s what they look like now:

the crew after shearing

The final version of my photo essay on our chickens is up.

Click on this running chicken for more pictures!