Halloween, With All Sorts Of Horrors!

Early in the day, while driving around I'd spotted a curbside find and decided that it was perfect to remake into roosts for the chickens!  Yay for curbside scores!

And the chickens NEED something to make them happy right now, lordy.  It's molting season and a bunch of them are right little freaks at the moment.

Sonic is especially humorless, poor pincushion.  This is the 'Pick me up and DIE' look.

When I'd first spotted her I'd involuntarily screamed  'Oh, my God!' a bit.

Since we never get any kids coming trick or treating around here, we all three felt free to zombie up and go prowl the neighborhoods in town where everyone ends up.  I spent about an hour on the kid getting her all pretty.  Three different kinds of blood for proper zombie shading!  She felt free to ham it up for the pictures.

The squinky eye was her idea.

The makeup looked a whole lot better at night, but next year I'm going to have to construct some new latex wounds, the ones we have I made about 6 years ago and they're wearing out.  Before we left to go zombie shambling, we had to herd the chickens into the coop early since it wasn't dark yet.  They did NOT appreciate being chased around by zombies, and I can't even imagine what the Hell the neighbors must have thought.  The kid's boyfriend came along with us again this year, the running joke she had that night was to grab him and groan 'Braaaiiinnsssss!' Then stop and tell him never mind, he was safe.

I had great fun lurching after unsuspecting teens and kids.  Kids never expect a parent to dress up like that, smear themselves with fake gore and then slow-speed-chase them down the street.  They get very unnerved, it's great.  After we had our fill and things wound down, we further entertained ourselves by stopping by Burger King and going inside to grab dinner.

At least the weather cooperated and waited until we got home to start raining!

Yay, Poultry Show!

Today was the big annual show & sale for our poultry club, the Northern Nevada Poultry Fancier's Association.  Usually we are centered in Reno, but today the show was held out in Fallon at a friendly rancher's HUGE steel barn, which took some time to drive to.

It was lovely and cool inside, a welcome change from the heat outside.

And chock full o' chickens!

Sadly, or perhaps for the best since I have NO willpower when it comes to chickens, the sale area held only a few lonely roos, the hens having all been snapped up first thing in the morning.

So we walked around and admired the chickens.  This little fellow was dashing and he knew it.

The Creole bantams were beautiful.

As were the large breeds.  This hen barely fit in her cage.

But she was VERY dignified.

Unlike this frizzled Silkie roo, who we couldn't stop giggling at.

It's really hard to say if he could see us or not.

Another huge chicken that barely fit in his cage.

There were other poultry there, too!  Like these...uhhh...

They looked geuinely offended at being labeled 'Turkeys', Champion be damned.

After the show we wandered and explored a bit driving home, and in Fernley came across this cool sculpture, the Bottle Cap Gazebo!

It glittered in the sun so, that at first we thought it was either a tile or colored mirror mosaic. 

The kid eyed it.  'Can I climb it?'
I looked closely at the thing. It indeed sported a ladder inside leading up to a sturdy-looking platform.  'Sure, I guess so...'
She beams, and we walk over to the thing.

Oh.  Never mind.  Kid scowls momentarily, then runs off to explore the thing from the ground.

Turns out it's from Burning Man!

Although being out in God-forsaken Fernley, I have a sneaking suspicion it was hauled halfway home from Burning Man and then someone came to their senses and realized they had nowhere to store it, thought fast and donated it to the town.

However it got there, it's way cool and a gorgeous thing.  The shading was impressive and well done.

Even the underside is fascinating.  You can see some of the numbering on the bottle caps.

After this it was getting late, so we grabbed a cold drink at a nearby AM/PM and headed back.  Across from the station was this sign:

Extraneous apostrophe aside, I'm glad they clarified things by adding little drawings of chickens.  This IS Nevada after all, and that kind of thing is legal in certain areas.

Uhhh...

I'm wondering, does it still count as a dreamcatcher to catch bad dreams if it's being held by a huge, scary-ass fake spider?

My kid has a decorating style all her own.

Meet The New Rooster!

Hey, we got a new rooster today!  He's a big guy but very quiet and docile.

The Halloween store had all kinds of 'zombie creatures--cats, rats, deer, squirrels, rabbits, gnomes--and lawn flamingos.  When we saw the zombie rooster we just KNEW we had to have it.

The chickens got to meet the new guy, they were certainly less than thrilled.  Cam, especially, gave it a hard stare and stretched his neck out as far as it would go.

Cam keeping his distance, along with a few of the girls...

Frosty the roo, on the left, was a bit braver.

The girls eventually decided that the new roo was weird, but harmless.

Once I tossed some fresh spinach down next to him, the older girls got right in there to eat.  The old ladies were mostly all 'Meh.'  They have spent years surrounded by the kid's plastic dinosaurs, so nothing fazes them at this point!

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Just FYI, all of you people who complain about having to rake Fall LEAVES can just bite me.

...and I still have a lot more rocks to rake up.

On the upside, today I got some very fun chicken-themed birthday stuff!

My card:

No surprises here!

Although his little butt is mounted on a spring and jiggles nonstop when you open the card, which had me giggling like an idiot for about 10 minutes.  I'm easily entertained.

I also got some cool Chickam fan art stuff--a coffee mug and a Tshirt--featuring Weedcat, our Giant Cochin roo, whom everyone calls His Majesty King Fluffy Pants!

And a see-through chicken!

Oooh, my aching giblets!

 I was chasing and pecking everyone with it at this point, just to be obnoxious.

The model partway done, the kid was helping me put it together.  It's about the size of a banty and right now looks like Mike the Headless Chicken.

Except for the rocks, it was a great day!