A Few Animal Updates

1.   The llama was skunked last night. Or this morning. Or this afternoon. Or possibly all three, judging from his stench, which I caught on a stiff breeze while photographing him today. His pasture-mates are clean as whistles, though, so hopefully this means that Sir Romulus has finally accepted his role as varmint-dismisser. I absolutely swell with pride to imagine him scooping his long, noodly neck really low and trotting aggressively after a black-and-white intruder. Good boy, Romulus. Good, stinky, untouchable boy.

I can't even cope with how beautiful his eyes are.

2.   The chickens still have not provided me any more eggs. Well, I have collected exactly ONE EGG this week. If by some chance you have been watching my little egg counter on the sidebar over there and wondered if I have just forgotten to update it... No. Just no eggs. Do you know how embarrassing it is to buy a carton of  snow white eggs at the grocery store? I feel like such a fraud. Like everyone there knows. Watching me examine eggs as if I have a choice. Judging me. Calculating in their heads how much money I have wasted on chicken scratch this month. Anyway, the feathery ladies do not appear to be molting; they have plenty of sunshine and fresh water; and only two roosters are around to "bother" them. Hubba hubba. So I know in my calcium-deprived bones that a giant clutch of eggs is somewhere on these nine acres. Somewhere. Not in the barn or the coop, but somewhere I will find them. Eventually. Or I will find a little nursery school of fresh baby chicks, which are only slightly less delicious.

An old photo, from more productive days...

3.   But Mia's love is still going strong. I sat in the sunny front yard today and fed him and his downy compadres a bag of stale bread, and he cuddled and honked me properly. I happened to be listening to music via headphones at the time, though, and apparently he objected to this. He started pecking at my head and really zeroed in on my headphones, almost in perfect beat to Ice Ice Baby which is the song that was playing at the time. The thing is, Mia is simply too young to appreciate fake rap from that era.

Stop! Collaborate and Listen! Mia's back!

4.   My friend, neighbor, and fellow book clubber Seri surprised me today with a tray of made-from-scratch sweet potato biscuits! You guys, they are so good. So soft and pillowy and sweet, just the exact thing I needed for an afternoon pick-me-up. But I tore off a little corner and offered it to Chunk-Hi and he not very politely refused. He really likes crunchy treats, we should always try to remember. Oh well, more for me. Thanks Seri!

Crunchy stuff only, please, Momma.

5.   Our parrot, Bobby Pacino, is not only learning new words lately; he is also assembling his growing vocabulary in terrifying fascinating ways. I knew it was coming, because in the days leading up to a burst of new words and phrases, Pacino always sits quietly on his perch, eyes lowered, one claw massaging his throat. I really need to write down every single thing he can say, because it's pretty impressive. This week his new thing is "I don't appreciate it, OK?" We've heard worse from him, unfortunately, but for some reason this sentence just cracks me up. The thing is, he says it with such appropriate disgust. His inflection, you guys, is spot on.

Someone told me... If you have a parrot 

and you aren't teaching him to say

"Help! They changed me into a parrot!"

Then you're wasting your time.

Oblah-Di, Oblah-Dah!
xoxoxoxo