Everything Old Is New Again

I was watching the kid play Kingdom Hearts III while I was folding some origami models last night.

"So your character, Sora, where does he live?"
"He doesn't really have a home."
"Okaay..." I watch as Sora does his thing. "He's beating up random strangers in a dark alley. And he gets rewards when he does this?"
"Yeah." She's madly clicking away on the controller. "Watch this!"
"Wow, okay. Sora did some cool little parkour-ish tricks on a barrel for a crowd, for money. Now you're running through town bashing shit open and taking what you find." Sora jumps up on a trolley.
"Uh huh. And look, you can find stuff to eat!"

I give her some quality side-eye and stifle a snort. "Congrats, you're a hobo."
A shout of shocked laughter. "What?! I am NOT!" This just as Sora eats something out of an abandoned Chinese takeout box sitting on the ground.

"You're eating out of roadside leftovers." Sora is dumpster diving and eating what he finds, which appears to be pizza. I tick off the points on my fingers. "Beating up strangers and taking their stuff. You're homeless. Hopping trains. You're roaming around the countryside, hanging out with two other loners who's only purpose is to inflict random acts of violence on strangers, and you take side jobs as goons to beat up 'bad guys'." Sora has now broken into a closed business, a toy store, and is whaling away on the place, wrecking the stock and rooting around finding more God-knows-how-old-food-to-eat. "Sora just huffed some helium. And you've finished by crawling through the ventilation ducts of this place, which are filthy, hoping to find food ingredients to share with a rat."

A moment of silence as realization dawns, then more laughter. "Oh God, I AM a hobo!"

Just for continuity's sake, later on in this game she went on to become a pirate, Sora waxing rhapsodic over how much he was looking forward to piracy--you know, that whole raping/murdering/pillaging/STDs thing...
Yeah, basically a seagoing hobo.
Oh, and one of the goals in the pirate part of the game is to...wait for it...catch crabs.
I shit you not.

Can't wait to see where this game ends up.

Chick Pics!

We got 16 chicks this year for our Chickam Hatch. I have an idea of the parents for some of them (spoiler: Cam was a busy boy), but for a lot of them it's gonna be 'wait and see'. Here they are in order of hatch!

Brick

 

Alphonso the Love Squirrel
Alphonso likes to challenge the older Brahma chicks through the wire seperator in the brooder box--the chicks are having to share the brooder box their first week until the older chicks get booted out into the flock. I'm calling 'rooster' on Alphonso.

Khufu
Khufu looks very much like Marbles, but is bigger. She was an assisted hatch due to the membrane of her egg being very thick and rubbery.

Darling
Hatched from a tiny bantam egg, Darling is a tiny chick! Either Milton of Pongo is her daddy, Luna the light gray bantam Cochin might be mama. Another assisted hatch, her egg was too pointed for her to rotate and unzip.

Oy the Chicky Chumbler
Oy looks very much like Pixy, but has more white on her face and is a bit bigger.

Beauregard the Bueano

Beau tried to sneak off during picture time...

Cheerio
Cheerio looks so similar to several other blondies that she got herself a blue food color spot on her back.

Cheerio also tried to sneak off.

Pixy
Pixy is nearly a twin for Oy, but has less white on her face--but tiny, thin white eyebrows--and is smaller.

Wooster

Sir Fluffington von Bonesaw, III
This is what happens when you let the Internet name your chickens...
Fluffington struggled a bit at first and required some handfeeding her first two days, but has bounced back and is fine now.

Kentucky
Kentucky broke a foot feather which then bled a bit, and chicks being chicks, the others kept pecking at it. She's okay after being seperated for a bit. The blue gunk on her left foot is BluKote, a genetian violet spray. She pecked at it and turned her beak blue.

Kentucky voiced her displeasure at picture time. LOUDLY.

Basil D'Oliveira
Basil has, I believe, our bantam Cochin Gumdrop for a mom.

Satan
Yet another assisted hatch--her egg was huge but Satan was bigger, too big to rotate and unzip. Satan is the ONLY chick without foot feathers, and that makes Groot, our Dark India Cornish Rock roo, her daddy!

Paprika
Paprika looks a lot like Basil, except bigger and lighter in color.

Marbles
Marbles looks a lot like Khufu, except smaller and with a lighter bib.

Mothball
Another blondie, Mothball has a green food color spot on her back.

There they all are!  When they are a bit older, we will be rehoming some of them, there are so many.

Happy Easter!

The bulbs in my front yard are finally coming up...

And my plum tree is blooming!  Maybe it'll fruit this year...

 The chickens were happy to see the sun...

Cam posed nicely.

Cam also reminded the banty boys who was boss. The Head Roo calling lesser roos for food like this, especially when he has nothing, as Cam does, here, is a major diss--he's treating them like hens.

Tingle climbed in the kid's lap and gave her a snuggle.

The weather had cleared long enough this afternoon to have our Easter egg hunt, which the kid still enjoys...

 

Though sometimes finding the eggs can be difficult.


Luckily, Dusty is happy to help. She picked up a red one and followed the kid back across the yard...

Being a Cocker Spaniel mix and a soft mouth, she held the one she found very gently and gave it up when asked.

Good girl!