Happy Halloween!

So the kid went with 'Werewolf'' for Halloween this year.  Since it's for school and no masks or appliances are allowed, we did makeup, plus little wolf ears and a tail.

She wanted to be a pissy little werewolf, so I obliged.

 

'Look fierce!'

She already had the UNR 'Nevada Wolf Pack' shirt, so it worked out well.

First Snow!

So we woke this morning to our first snow of the season.

It's always fun to watch this year's youngsters discovering snow for the first time, and since we had buttoned up the coop last night because of the wind & cold they hadn't seen it yet.  So we went out and let them all out of the coop.

The older chickens looked around with a 'Yeah, right.  This stuff again.' expression, but for the youngsters, confusion reigned.  There was much staring.

Doodad and Cam craned their necks to stare, then nibble.

Fred and Baba stared at the snow, while Bruce had a herp-derp moment with Chick and stared at her, for whatever reason.

Meeko came to the door of the coop, then firmly decided NOT to come out and retreated to the furthest reaches of the coop with the old ladies.

The kid swarmed into the coop and carried him out.

He wanted no truck with the strange white stuff and ran back in.

It's pretty, but we expect it all to be gone by noon.

Werewolf Makeup Practice Run!

Since I haven't ever done any Halloween makeup besides the zombie thing and the kid this year decided that she wanted to be a werewolf, thought I'd better practice. I was trying to follow this excellent tutorial here:  http://www.beautylish.com/v/rusuqv/werewolf-makeup-tutorial

We started with a base--white Halloween pancake mixed with regular foundation.  I was going for a pale ivory but got it a bit too white.

 

Next I added some brown cream makeup shading, making the widow's peak, going around the hairline and adding the beginnings of a fur beard.

Filled in the eyebrows and brown areas with black and brown eyebrow pencils for hairy details, added brown around her eyes, put in some scowly forehead & nose lines, then on her lips added some dusty rose lipstick with a bit of brown eyebrow pencil outline.

Fussed in the details, blended things and made the eyes more dramatic.

Took her out back and used temporary black hair spray to add black streaks to her hair and blend the makeup into the hairline better.  Smudged some of the black hair spray into the beard & widow's peak areas but forgot to add some to the eyebrows, which would have helped.

Then commanded her to 'look fierce'.

She didn't need colored contact lenses since her eyes are so light anyway (plus she's too young for them).  Fangs will also be out during school hours, but she'll have full fangs and claws for Halloween night trick-or-treating.

For school hours I practiced some nasty, filthy werewolf claws using yellow, brown and black nail polish.  Less messy than makeup and won't smudge or wash off.  I didn't use any makeup to pale out her hands since she'll be at school that day.

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A few things I'll change on Halloween--less white in the foundation, the white pancake doesn't want to blend and tends to look too unnatural.  I'll also include her neck makeup on Halloween day.  No foundation under the widow's peak and beard areas, it tends to make the black/brown look too purple.  She had trouble trusting me to do makeup around her eyes and isn't used to it yet, so no mascara.  I'll also do a better job on her lips and eyebrows.

Her costume will be your basic jeans & t-shirt, but the shirt is from UNR and reads
'Nevada Wolf Pack', which I thought was appropriate and funny.  She'll also have the wolf ears and a tail she requested.

But considering I've never done a werewolf before, am working with grocery store cosmetics and don't have a clue what I'm doing, for a practice run it came out OK.

Latest Yard Barf

Latest thing I pulled from the ground in the back yard...

 

A gigantic snaffle bit worthy of a freakin' Clydesdale. Also another horseshoe for a total of 3 so far.  I'm thinkin' the final one will be attached to a hoof...attached to a leg...attached to a shoulder...

Yet Another Weird Nest From The Past...

Found a couple more pics I thought I'd share....

Hello not-quite-empty bucket, what is that peeking out of the top?  What could possibly be lurking within?

Oh...a Very Large Chicken!

To be fair, we hadn't had Gloria very long and she hadn't quite gotten the hang of using real nests yet.

Today's Fun Is With Pumpkins!

So today the chickens got a pumpkin...

 ...which had an appropriate expression of dismay. The seeds and stringy parts were removed to avoid any crop impactions.

At first it was thoroughly inspected...

And then, as always when FOOD is discovered, found to be wonderful.

  Baby the Kraienkoppe hen liked it...

 

Sora the white Leghorn hen REALLY liked it, and decided to defend her pumpkin against all interlopers. Pompador, on the right, just couldn't figure it out .

Bloop the d'Uccle roo and Fries the black mottled d'Uccle hen decided to stick with an eye, since Sora obviously wasn't coming up for air any time soon.

 While the gray Giant Cochin contingent huddled together and mostly watched.

 There is plenty left for tomorrow, although Sora didn't believe it and did go to roost rather reluctantly.