Chickens in Space!

Okay, the title was a bit misleading. I researched the animal astronaut files on the NASA website and there don't appear to have been any chicken astronauts. Mice, frogs, dogs, monkeys, newts, turtles, chimpanzees and even a stray French cat, but no chickens. Clearly NASA shows a slight prejudice to our favorite egg-producing yard fowl, which is a shame. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know if a chicken can lay an egg in space? And if so, is that egg edible? Maybe I'm the only person who ponders these things - clearly no one at NASA has.

This all came up because the Space Shuttle Endeavor finally took off yesterday after a month of delays on its journey to the International Space Station. The boys were less than enthused to stand outside at 6 p.m. and watch it because a) they were convinced it wouldn't go up again and b) dinner was on the table and they both professed to be starving. But it did go up and Clementine watched it with us. I'm not sure she was as impressed as a chicken should be witnessing her first shuttle launch, but at least she got to experience it.


And I got a photo of a chicken watching the space shuttle go up.

However, it was the most boring launch we've ever witnessed. The sky was bright, hazy, and cloudy and the conditions were not favorable for good visibility. Oddly enough the wind must have been blowing the right way because we heard the shuttle go up, which doesn't happen too often. The loud roar of the engines rumbled through our back yard soon after take-off.

And because of the crappy viewing conditions, I did have to take the photo into Photoshop and "blue up" the sky a bit so that you could make out the tiny dot that is the space shuttle. It's not my best work, but it does help you to see where the shuttle trajectory falls from our viewpoint.

Compare that daytime launch photo with the two sets of night launch photos I posted on the blog for previous missions. Big difference huh?

The other launch photos might have been more spectacular, but this photo did have a chicken watching the launch. I wonder how many people can say THAT?

A Love Poem for Gardeners

Do you Carrot All for Me?
– Anonymous

Do you carrot all for me?
My heart beets for you,
With your turnip nose
And your radish face,
You are a peach.
If we cantaloupe,
Lettuce marry;
Weed make a swell pear.

Kid Craft :: Binoculars for budding naturalists

My friend Courtney has a theory when it comes to doing activities with your child - There is an inverse relationship between the amount time and effort you put into making something with your child and the amount of actual enjoyment by your child. When you spend hours lingering over the perfect craft or activity with your child, they drop it in 2 minutes, never to return to it. When you slap something together in 30 seconds with no thought or skill associated with it, you can guarantee that your child will love it. This explains the success of these very low-tech binoculars.


The reason behind these binoculars is simple. My three-year-old has changed his identity and now firmly believes that he is British naturalist Nigel Marvin. Nigel carries a backpack and wears binoculars. Jace now carries a backpack constantly and was in desperate need of binoculars to complete the ensemble. Jace became obsessed with Nigel when he got hooked on his Prehistoric ParkDVD set. He is obsessed to the point that he now will only respond if you call him Nigel and he has renamed his big brother Bob, after the park handyman, and I'm Suzanne, after the park veterinarian. This is how we've been living for well over a month now.

So I think it's clear why we needed to create binoculars. Why on Earth another kid would need them is beyond me. But I know there are plenty of quirky toddlers out there, so maybe this tutorial will save another mom whose kid needs binoculars now. Right. Now.

Have a budding naturalist too? Here are the easy steps to throw together your own binoculars in just a few minutes.


Supplies:

Two empty toilet roll tubes (or one paper towel tube cut in half)
Electrical tape
Construction paper
Ribbon
Glue stick
Scissors
3 Plastic bottle tops
Cardboard
Drill (not pictured)

First you want to cut you sheet of black construction paper in half lengthwise. This makes two long rectangles that should be the same width as your cardboard tubes. Then wrap the cardboard around each tube and cut it to size. You'll have two rectangles of paper to go around your two tubes.


Give your kid a glue stick and have them glue the construction paper and wrap it around the tube. Do the same with both tubes. Then wrap a piece of black electrical tape around the center to keep them together.


Get a small rectangle of cardboard and wrap it in a contrasting color of construction paper. Once again, give your kid a glue stick and have them glue the paper onto the cardboard.


Hot glue a soda bottle top to the middle of the cardboard for the button. It's best to also use a hot glue gun to attach the cardboard rectangle to the tubes. And obviously don't let the kids use the hot glue gun.


Then get a drill and drill two small holes right through the middle of two plastic bottle tops. These are from some 2-litre juice bottles.


Put some hot glue around the edges and glue them to one end of both tubes.


Get a piece of ribbon or yarn and tape it to the outside of the binoculars so they can be worn around the neck. Measure your kid beforehand so they don't dangle too low.

Viola. Binoculars.


Jace has been using these binoculars daily for about three weeks now. We made a pair for each boy and luckily Aidan lost interest in them within the first 5 minutes, so Jace has two pairs to switch between when one pair gets damaged. We have since re-hot glued the white "eye" pieces back on about 6 times each and have reinforced them with electrical tape.


He puts them around his neck when he gets up in the morning and takes them off at bedtime. He also wears them when we go out and tries to spot dinosaurs with them while riding in the cart at the grocery store.


Oh, just don't call them binoculars. They're glasses.

And don't call him Jace. He's Nigel.

Wildlife Weekend :: The Well Caterpillar

The Well Caterpillar
- a haiku

The caterpillar
He doesn't have stomach flu
Sucks that we all do

The GWS Laundry List

I decided that today would be a good day to list out some random announcements and mental musings that have been floating around in my head and warrant a quick snippet on the blog.

1) My Bloggiversary Gnome has settled nicely into his new home in Ribbit's garden! She wrote a great post about the gnome's arrival that involves a kid, a dog, Santa Claus and a mad chase. Head on over to Ribbit's to read the madcap adventure.

2) I added my Twitter feed on the bottom of the right column of the blog. It's way down at the bottom where it's least likely to get noticed by anyone popping in for a quick blog read. For those so inclined to take a peek into the mundane, the feed is there for you to ogle. I cannot promise that any of the tweets will be interesting because I'm not famous and I lead a relatively normal life compared to most people….notice I said "relatively."

3) Farmer B and I have finally decided on the type of chicken run to build for the hens. I'm embarrassed to admit that the driving force behind getting the run complete is that we cannot go on vacation without building it. Yes, three hens are keeping us housebound this summer. Crazy admission on my part. But our chicken sitters cannot be responsible for using the maddening Chicken Transportation Unit twice a day and then catching inevitable loose chickens that result from novice use. Luckily Farmer B has a co-worker who's a "good ole' boy" as we call them here in Florida, and he's built a chicken run or two in his day. Equally lucky is that he only requires a bottle of Jim Beam as payment, so we're golden. Farmer B and his friend will start on this project within the next couple of weeks.

4) Thanks to everyone's advice, I'll be starting raised beds in the garden for the next planting season in August/September. Depending on how much the chicken run sets us back financially, we may only start with one raised bed. But one is an improvement and we can add another bed or two with each new planting season.

5) I put the oh-so-famous "Square Foot Gardening" book on hold at our local library. Apparently this book is quite popular because I am Number 3 on the list of recipients who have the stupid book on hold. So it might be weeks before I get the book and figure out how to make a raised bed and what to fill it with. I have to hope that the other people on the list for the book decide that gardening is dumb and turn the book in after only a couple of days.

6) I miss my garden. I didn't think I would, but I really do. It's just a weedy mess with a couple of producing okra plants and a very angry mint plant that is trying to conquer the garden in a game of "Herb & Vegetable RISK." It's depressing not having anything green to check up on right now and I think my okra are sick of being fondled by me.

7) And in a follow-up to Number 6, my sunflowers aren't growing. I've always been able to grow sunflowers, but so far they're stuck in the same bizarre stasis that haunted the rest of the plants after the garden flooded earlier this year.

8) I'm thinking of changing the background color of my blog to white. I orginally picked beige because they say that beige is the new black, but I think white might be the new beige. I am impressed by how much of my day is taken up by me focusing on the background color choices for the blog and constantly second guessing myself, and then realizing how my life must be going pretty well these days if I can dedicate that much thought to a hexcolor choice on a silly little blog. Other people should be so lucky as to have that as their big concern for the moment, you know?

That concludes my laundry list. Back to regularly scheduled blogging later this week.

The chickens' first kill

Yesterday was quite a day in the young lives of our hens. Yesterday was the first day they tasted blood - their first kill - true blood.

The boys and I went out in the backyard before dinner when I heard a noise from the chicken coop that alerted me that something was wrong. Besides a frenzied bok-ba-gawking there was a low growl that I hadn't heard from them before. It reminded me of the noise our cats make when one of them goes to the vet and then comes home and the other one does that low growl when he sniffs the vet-office-stink on the other cat. If you have cats, you know that noise.

When I looked in the cage I saw that Maggie was running around madly with something in her mouth and she was clearly the source of the low growl. The bok-ba-gawking was coming from the other two who were chasing her like their lives depended on it. She was going so fast that I couldn't see what was in her mouth.

But then I saw the long dangly legs.


She had a frog.

A big dangly tree frog.

She stopped running every now and then just long enough to bash the frog into the wooden frame of the run, which sent the other chickens into a frenzy as they tried to steal it from her.

A few times they all grabbed a limb and proceeded to attempt to draw and quarter the thing in a very grisly scene.

When I ran in to grab the camera, Sookie must have taken the frog from Maggie because she had it when I got back, much to Maggie's dismay.


And the chase was on again. I don't know if the other two chickens got any parts, but there did appear to be slightly less of the frog hanging out of Sookie's mouth. Then she went to the corner and gulped the thing down.


I must say, I was floored. I didn't know that chickens were quite so carnivorous. It was like the velociraptor scene from Jurassic Park. After poking around on the Backyard Chicken Forum I found that chickens will eat frogs, snakes, mice, lizards and anything else they can beat to death and gulp down.

Mine apparently crossed over to the dark side with just a measly old frog.

I wonder if it tasted like chicken?

Can I celebrate Independence Day?

Independence Day! The day when you Americans celebrate booting out us British all those years ago. Or as we look at it, the day we decided to throw the war because it was much too long of a boat-ride to govern you funny-talking Yankees anyway. Seriously though, it was a wonderful weekend of beautiful fireworks and a new record at our house of the most concurrent meals served with hot dogs as a main course. I'm not proud of that last part.

We're live in a rural town, but within a subdivision where the houses are nicely spread out with just enough land to feel roomy. We are unfortunate enough to have a houseful of very annoying neighbors that live at the end of our street. Their teens drive entirely too fast, they throw loud parties constantly, someone in the house is learning the electric guitar, and they ride ATVs through everyone's yard late at night. But we put up with them because every July 4th they throw a huge bash with fireworks impressive enough to rival any small town. This bash seems to involve about 50 cars, three large tents and very loud music. We've never been invited to it, nor do we know anyone in the neighborhood who has been, but we do benefit from the pyrotechnic entertainment. The fireworks look amazing from our front yard, which is perfect when you've got two young children and a husband who doesn't like the crowds and traffic associated with large city fireworks displays.


I spent a good part of Independence Day afternoon fiddling with my SLR camera trying to get the perfect settings to take some awesome fireworks photos.


I think I got everything just right and set up my tripod in the front yard next to our front-row seating. We even had some little fireworks ourselves, which was good fun for the boys.

It's nice for the boys to experience the 4th from their own driveway. I don't think the boys realize how lucky they are to have such a great display only three houses down from us.


This morning the remnants of our little fireworks show littered our driveway and we now have a nice black burn mark covering half of the concrete. July 5th is all about cleaning up firework remnants, eating left-over burgers and hotdogs and just being thankful for a great weekend. I wonder if that's what the soldiers envisioned way back when? Probably not. I bet they didn't think a whole slew of Brit's would be partying down with their American friends on the big day either! HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!