Just a quick update--goodbyyyyyyye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, this isn't a real post, guys. Just a quick update to tell you that I am going to Maine tomorrow, so don't expect another post for at least ten days. And I am going TENT CAMPING, so no chance of me using a laptop. Wish me luck, and I'll post tons of epic pics when I get home(as long as I don't get mauled by a grizzly bear first!!)!

SO DO NOT WORRY. I AM NOT DEAD, just camping. :)  Bye!!

A break from the series..A cute felted Otter!!

This is what I felted today:

             
 Today was a thunderstorming mess of a Wednesday, like a raincloud choking on fire and lightning in a severe car accident in the middle of a tsunami(Go back and read that sentence again. It was a work of art.), so I decided to felt something. And after browsing through pictures of animals on the internet for about half an hour, I finally settled on a North American River Otter. After all, otters are cute, smart, playful, and can twist themselves into fun shapes! Who wouldn't felt an otter? And so it began.

Another brainstorm I had(after Rachel commented, "People would pay for that!") was to felt little endangered animal models, and then start selling them online. Then, I would donate most of the profit money to the WWF! Haha!! I would be doing good for my creativity and rare animals! What could be better?

So a thunderstorming mess of a Wednesday actually turned out to be good for something. And sorry I didn't do a pet post today, but I'll probably be doing Lola tomorrow. So stay tuned, and please comment if you like the WWF idea!


              

The Biggest, Grandest Freakazoid Feline That Ever Lived: Say hello To......

Bo, of course!

Presuming you have read my blog, you know all about Bo, mostly. If you don't know the basics, go to the September 2011 section in the archive first.

Now that you've read that, let me tell you how we got Bo(and Molly, for that matter.).

Molly and Bo are brother and sister, five years old, and this being a a home for defective pets, of course they're 'mutt' cats. We got them summer of 2007 after our beloved tabby cat Belle died tragically in the crawlspace. We were looking for a kitten to replace her, and Mom thought to look on Freecycle, so we wouldn't have to pay, of course! And she found an ad for 3-week-old kittens. The breeder was an accidental 'backyard breeder'(meaning she doesn't do it professionally for money)---her female cat wasn't spayed at one year old because she  "didn't know they could have kittens that young!" So we were looking and looking, and we loved Molly but Bo was the only male in a litter of four kittens, and splitting up siblings is so cruel, and so....yup, you guessed it, Molly and Bo both came home. They were absolutely adorable as kittens, with short little tabby--striped tails,big green eyes, and each with a unique pattern of black patches, which are also tabby striped.
They were also extremely crazy, and would run around pouncing on everything from dust balls to jingle bells, climb couches, hide in cabinets, sit on papers, and even at that tender age of one month, Bo somehow managed to scale the door to my parents' bedroom and sit balanced on the top(I'm NOT kidding.). Perhaps one of their most annoying antics was attacking our feet under the blankets when we would go to sleep.

Now Bo's most recent oddity is becoming a hermit. No, not a crab, he will just hide under the blankets in either my or my parents' bed and sleep there for days. No, he's not sick, just really, really lazy? The main problems with this operation are that  a) He gets fleas in my sheets, and b) I sometimes end up sitting on him.
Eventually he'll come downstairs to use the litter box, grab some food, and slurp a drink of water before creeping back up to his lair, but only about every three days. WTF?? So, living with Bo, the main question in my life has become, "What the ______ is wrong with this cat?"

A story of feathered friends...The Chickens!

As you all know, I have four chickens.

As you all know, I have four evil chickens.

As you all know, I have four evil chickens who break their eggs.

And as you all know, this is what I have called you here to discuss.

So. Here they are:


The white one is Penelope, and the brown one is my favorite, Buffy.

 The very speckley one is Daisy, and the black one is Sirius(YES like from Harry Potter, and I'm getting sick of explaining this to everyone.), and Buffy's in there too.

And here's a good picture of Buffy I got back in April.

So the main problem with chickens in general is that they're so messy. They are little pooping machines. Also(and I speak from experience), they will dig pits in the ground, wreak havoc among hoseboxes(Please don't ask!!), chase around cats, poop all over the patio and in your shoes if you leave them out, eat peonies, coriopsis, butterfly bush, roses, and are particularly fond of destroying lavender.
Our chickens also break their eggs.

Now, you'll ask, "What kind of cannabalistic freak chickens will break and eat their own eggs??" Now before you start, I'll say that it was not their fault. We go to Boston every year for my Dad's business trip, and they were locked in a tiny run for two weeks. And our boneheaded neighbor Matthew, who was supposed to be taking care of them, didn't bother to take a single egg out of the coop. For two weeks. WTF, Matthew??? Didn't I specifically ask you to put eggs in the fridge, and clean the coop?? AND I left you specific instructions on HOW!! So they were bored to death in their tiny prison and decided that eggs tasted good. That was last November. They have been doing it ever since then, with great sacrifices on my part!! For the past two months I've been getting up at five thirty in the morning to catch the eggs. And not only that, but I have to wait until they're LAYING the egg, standing around outside while they put up a royal racket for twenty minutes, then snatch the egg as soon as it's out. Penelope actually LURKS in the run while Buffy is laying in the coop, so that she can speed in there and eat it as soon as it's out of Buffy's--

OKAY, let's talk about their personalities for a minute.

Penelope: The head of the flock, the ringmaster, the hog of all food and treats. She is wild, sometimes mean, and will try to eat freckles off your legs. She is friends with Sirius and constantly driving the others away from food to get it all to herself. She is also the one who breaks the most eggs. Delaware.

Sirius Black: The regal peacemaker. Sirius is second in command and will hog the food a little bit, but she never pecks Daisy, and rarely Buffy. I like her looks because she has shiny black feathers, a high tail, blue feet, and brown eyes, which is rare for a chicken(they usually have orange.). Black Jersey Giant.

Daisy: The scaredy-cat. Daisy will run away if you get too close and is also the noisiest, clucking and trilling constantly to herself. Her scared personality is probably not helped by the fact that one time, we were leaving for Boston in, like, half an hour and Daisy escaped from the run, causing me to chase her around for twenty minutes, trying to catch her with a butterfly net. Silver-Laced Wyandott.

Buffy: The underdog. Buffy is a small chicken but, for some reason, lays the biggest eggs. She is bullied mostly because she's from a different flock, she is actually slightly older than the others. She is very pretty, but she has a white patch right behind her comb where the others peck her. I always have to feed her separately in the morning so she gets enough food. She is the friendliest and will come when I call her. Buff Orphington.


Anyway, they've gotten better about the eggs, especially when I get up early enough. And I love having chickens even if they are freaks of nature. So let's hear it for my most feathered pets..........the chickens!

Warning: This post is rated PG13 for sexual references....Blackberry

This is Blackberry.

And this.

And this:

While I'm giving you time to recover from the cuteness, let's talk a bit about my sweet little bunny.

As all of you who have read my blog from the beginning(or at least from February) know, Blackberry is a now-nine-month-old Holland Lop and NOT a girl, like I was once convinced of. He has always been such a little puffball that it's been impossible to judge scientifically before now. But NOW I can tell you that yes, certainly, Blackberry is definitely a boy. Also, as the title suggests, he has had lots of....issues for a few months. Let's just say you don't want to get anywhere near him in the spring.

For the first eleven years of my life, I was blissfully unaware of any of the most repulsive things of adulthood and naively assumed that when a couple was married, pop! one night a baby just magically appeared in the wife's belly and started growing, until, nine months later, there was a lot of fuss and shouting in a hospital or(like in my little sister's case) a nice lady with a black bag showed up at your house and helped pop the baby out. Then, a few hours later, a new small red scrap of humanity would join the family with a LOT of noise. My guess about animal reproduction was a lot closer--I knew even as a little kid that two animals needed to "mate" to make baby animals, but the knowledge from there was much like the human guess, just minus the midwife/hospital. I had absolutely no idea how the reproduction actually took place. And then came the revelation, when my sister gave me a book and a small and awkward talk. (I remember the first question out of my mouth was, "Why is it 'the birds and the bees'?") For the record, I DID NOT need to see the pictures in that book twice!! Anyway, when Blackberry started getting more destructive, and also started trying to, well, you know......Then I knew the awkward truth, as much as I wish it weren't true. Facts are facts, and the fact is, Blackberry is a boy. And you know what? I'm okay with that. BUT the other problem is that he hasn't been neutered and his....maturity gives him excessive energy. Here's his usual nightly agenda:

10:00pm---11:30pm: Eat newspaper from litter box. Also rip it up LOUDLY and stomp on the little pieces as hard as possible.

11:45pm---1:00am: Start trying to construct tunnel to Taiwan through bottom of cage.

1:00am---1:30am: Crawl into his box and jump up, thunking the box into every wall possible.

1:30am---3:00am: Sleep(the only quiet thing he does all night.).

3:15am---3:30am: Crunch food as loudly as possible.

3:30am---4:00am: Have a contest with Lola concerning who can drink faster and click water bottle the loudest(Blackberry usually wins these.).

4:00am---6:15am(when I get up): Sleep.

And it's not like I leave him in his cage all day, it's not that he's bored--he has a little play pen that we set up in grass and dirt so that he can hop around, munch on grass, dig in the dirt, etc., so don't say he's just bored all night. Not to mention the stick, tennis ball, toilet paper tube, empty cardboard tape roll, wooden mobile, salt lick, wooden box hideout, and sponge vegetables he has to keep him amused.

Anyway, even though he might be a pain in the _____ sometimes, I'm glad he's my pet and my nice birthday bunny. And I love him forever!