2004jan07. Henhouse Update #17a. The roosters are being replaced faster than members of Menudo. Since they've been quarantined to the coop after the mighty chihuahua attack, they are for the most part out of sight ... but the crowing is changing. Back in the day, there were three roosters, two with bright, shiny vocalizations, and one who must have been chugging Vicks Formula 44-D ... now I’m getting the impression there’s only one shy one. Unless, of course, they've all mostly decided to stop crowing because of that whole dog-killing-chicken thing. Hard to say. The turkeys can still roam, however (tough enough to fight dogs?), and one of them is getting infinitesimally more comfortable with our occasional presence. The turkey still immediately gets all puffed-up macho and fans out his tail feathers when he sees us, but now he will occasionally stop dragging his wings on the ground (which I am guessing is another macho thing, I used to do it back when I drove my shiny black Trans-Am around, muscle shirt, gold chains, you remember [here the narrator strikes a familiar “weightlifting” pose known as the “sneaky snake"]) to peck at a stray kernel of whatever it is that turkeys eat. Off the ground. Way far away from any feeder. Bugs? Dirt/rocks for the gullet? Or is that gizzard? Or, as the kids on the street say, the “gizzazzay.” I am not up on my turkey technology. In other bird news, we are scheming and dreaming up ways to entice a roadrunner or two to visit the property from time to time, as they are swell, beautiful birds -- you can apparently set your watch by them as they run around pre-determined paths each day, just like Paul Ordman, or Oortcloud, the math guy who had sex with numbers or mistook his hat for an integral, whatever. Also we would like ravens to visit. Without the whole leave-some-delicious-dead-carcasses-on-the-ground theme. In other news, I am coming to you LIVE in glorious 16 colors. I have two crippled 1997-era PCs that constantly fight me as I try to maxorize them into just one that actually works properly. Today one of them lost its “operating system.” I tried to feed it some grain, no dice.
