Is It Halloween Yet?

Hehe...tonight we got a SERIOUSLY WICKED idea for our Halloweencam this year. The kid has agreed to be the star. I've been talking to her about the importance of posing the right way and being very still until the time comes. She's so excited she's about to pop. Between her and her dad, I expect to have at LEAST one trick-or-treater pee themselves this year. Last year J. did such a good job that the next morning there was a trail of trampled candy leading from our door...down the driveway...and down the sidewalk. Both directions.

Now I just have to get busy building the new graveyard headstones and learning the necessary makeup, as I am mostly Hero Support on Halloween.

A clue?

Whatever you do, DON'T BLINK!

Chickam Candidates Are Started!

Chickam is on the way!

The two incubators are up & running and rule in solitary splendor on my kitchen island...

...with all their assorted temperature probes & hygrometers. Inside they hold a total of 61 eggs, half in each unit. There are 16 Giant Cochin eggs (6 Golden Laced, 5 Blue and 5 Lemon-Blue), 17 Silkie eggs (3 each Cuckoo, Black, Buff, White and Splash, 2 Blue Splash), 15 Belgian d'Uccle (4 Self Blue, 5 Porcelain and 3 each Black Mottled and MilleFleur) and 13 Salmon Favorelle eggs.

We decided to do something a little different this year, and are not hatching any of our own chickens' eggs. Instead, all of the eggs were ordered online and were shipped via the USPS from the eastern U.S., so the hatch rate automatically drops--shipped eggs are vulnerable to possible rough handling by USPS workers. But all of the eggs were securely wrapped and came through beautifully, and look to be of outstanding quality. Several of the breeds are on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy list of breeds in danger of being lost forever. Salmon Favorelles are listed as 'Critical', and Cochins are on the 'Watch' list. So by buying their eggs and hatching them we are both increasing demand for the breed and creating more of them.

The eggs are numbered in order to keep track online of which one(s) are hatching, and the X on one side and O on the other are registration marks for us, so we can tell which ones we've turned. The eggs need to be turned by hand 3 times a day, every day for 21 days.

There IS one thing...I've never owned Salmon Favorelles before but I've wanted them for a long time--I'm a sucker for fluffy-faced chickens. However, I'm not sure if this hen is representative of the breed--!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQnvDw-0uxM

I LOVE her.
At any rate, hatch day and the Chickam start date is Friday, February 26th!

Really?

Who thought this was a good idea? I'll bet someone at the ad agency is howling right now. I know that when J. and I simultaneously spotted it the other day on the freeway, we burst out laughing so hard I almost drove off the road. The ad in itself is creepy, anyhow--the guy has been using this cartoony version of himself since the early 80's, and is still running the same live ad of himself from the same era, with just bad, fresh overdubbing. It's very Dorian Gray.

Oh, I think you WILL be beat, if southern Californians get even the slightest chance. Slowly and with great enthusiasm and vigor.

Help, My Resolve Is Crumbling!

Salmon Favorelles. Giant Cochins. Belgian d'Uccles. Silkies. Light Brahmas. All fertile hatching eggs, all for sale on ebay.

These ebayers must be stopped. Sadly, I'm not going to be the one to stop them, it seems.

*sigh*

So Chickam may be starting early this year, around the third week of February if all goes well. Science. Science? Science! That's it, SCIENCE! I'm hatching chicken eggs for SCIENCE!

Yeah, my brain will buy that. It's easily distracted by shiny objects and baby chickens...

After 15+ Years It's Time...

...to retire my old set of dishes. They were made by Mikasa Studio One, which was the 'casual dining' part of Mikasa. Which translates to 'stoneware', and damned good stuff.

I have the 'Village Trail' pattern, which is a faintly speckled glaze with a rim design of grape leaves and berries, very attractive and old Tuscany-looking.

But after all these years a lot of the pieces have broken or become chipped, and they are ALL noticeably harder to clean these days as the glaze wears thin. It's been a great set, and I remember going to the Mikasa outlet store in Fullerton to pick it out. Sad to say, Mikasa stores do not exist anymore. So I went looking online at Mikasa, confident that I'd find something I like as a replacement.

The short answer? No.

And I'm not especially super picky about dishes, either! Noritake has this set, that is microwave safe:

This one from Phaltzgraff is nice, too:

This is made by Sango, Avanti--nice deep colors:

This tortoiseshell set is lovely, too:

Here's one called Galaxy Jade:

Kon-Tiki:

And Pearl Shimmer:

No doubt that finally deciding on a set will be far simpler than carting ourselves all over town to actually see them in person.

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.