Karate Night!

And the kid advances to Purple Belt, 3rd Degree.

Her gi has quite the collection of stars on it (one per belt color achieved), it looks very intimidating.

Leaving In Style

Houdini, our little unknown breed hen who we got from a feed store in August of 2002 as an adult, just left us. We knew she was old, and that tonight was going to be the night.

In typical Houdini style, she left us peacefully in her sleep on the stroke of midnight, surrounded by everyone celebrating and lots of noise and fireworks.

The old lady knew how to make an exit.

Yay, Recycling!

New discovery--used holiday ribbon makes really COOL puffy Origami stars!

It's so nice to be able to reuse something that normally just gets used once and--most of the time still looking great--gets tossed. The ribbon is strong enough to hold the star shape, is naturally sparkly-pretty and is by far the best thing I've found to fold stars with yet. I've only tried the wide stuff, not the narrow ribbon yet--it will likely work, I just don't know if my fingers are nimble enough to FOLD the narrow ribbon!

Of course, the kid found other uses for them...

Happy Holidays!

Here's our tree this year, it's a shame it has to go in a couple of days, but will be recycled.

The kid is happy with her loot, and above all, the traditions that our family holds near and dear to their hearts have been preserved...

I LOVE the maniacal gleam in her eyes!

...all over her long-suffering father. Ya gotta love pointless family traditions!

You have to watch those traditions though, sometimes they come back to bite you in the butt!

Otherwise known as, 'Watch where you sit!'. And yes, we were calling her Bow Butt for the rest of the morning.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...Uh...

Today while driving home from the doctor's office, I spotted a small green pickup truck headed towards me...with what looked like three large penguin heads poking out over the top of the cab. I got a chuckle at the optical illusion...until it drove by and I could see that it was, indeed, three large, paper mache penguins riding serenely in the bed of the truck, regally facing forward. I gotta start carrying a camera with me for stuff like that, southern California is a lush weirdness habitat.

Bad Habits & Racial Memory

Poof, our White Crested Black Polish hen, has managed to start a fad amongst her sisters.

She likes to perch each evening in the nectarine tree, in a spot where she can see the sun go down, and watch the sunset. Afterwards she jumps down and goes to roost in the coop, where she is SUPPOSED to. Soulful little thing, for a chicken...

Unfortunately, several of the OTHER hens have decided that this looks both keen and fun, and have taken to perching in the same tree, only HIGHER and they don't get down and go in like they are supposed to, little brats.

This results in me shaking nectarine tree branches each night until it rains angry hens and cussing Poof for starting such a dorky fad.

Also, somehow a few of the chickens, some of which were not hatched by us and came along AFTER we moved the coop door clear to the other end of the run, inevitably will go to the OLD coop door and frantically run back and forth, wanting to be let in there. It's like a racial memory and kinda spooky, seeing as how we closed that door more than a year ago and they have NEVER even seen it open. It's made of wood & hardware cloth, just like the rest of the coop so it is not obviously a door, either. And the NEW coop door is a steel mesh security door.

Weird...

Steel?

11th wedding anniversary today, yay! The traditional anniversary gift list says that the 11th is 'Steel'. What the heck is up with that? Not 'Linens' or 'Glassware' or some other normal household thing. Steel? Is this the bottle cap anniversary or something? What's next year--coke for stoking the blast furnace?
When I was giving J. his gift, I was telling him that this one was the 'Steel' year, so he piped up and asked, "So what did you steal for me?"
Smart ass...
Oh well, off to Magnolia Bird Farm for more dessicated bugs for Scout the mockingbird and Jake, the sparrow.

Also, the Euflexa injection I got on Thursday is marvelous for my right knee, two more injections to go with this round. Then on to more rehab and a new knee brace for the thing. My right knee is being entirely too needy right now...