Instead of posting anything new and worthwhile, I will just point out that blackberry season is in full swing, so I shall repost my video of Rosie stealing them from me.  MORE Mojo! »

I can remember the first time I saw a wild turkey. We were renting a house in the middle of an industrial park--sort of this island of woods and fields in the middle of this huge airport industrial park, maybe half a mile from the airport. We had this very long half-a-mile driveway, and we were on our way out--the driveway dumped us in the middle of an aerospace contractor's parking lot--when we encountered this huge bird sitting in the middle of our driveway. It was way too big and ugly to be one of our chickens, and not ugly enough to be a turkey vulture.  MORE Mojo! »

Two things, neither of them of any huge consequence. But Mojo enjoys her fretting.

First, ever since they've hatched, it has done nothing but RAIN TORRENTIALLY upon my helpless squirmy little spudlings. Mojo thinks this can't be good for them. Even if Mom sits on the nest and protects them--which she is--the little guys have to eat eventually. If they are like chickens they have a couple of days while they finish off the yolk so they don't have to eat (that's why chicken farms can ship them off and they can survive in the box). In fact when you get baby chicks through the mail the first thing you have to do is teach them how to drink. But these warbler nubbins aren't fully formed fluffballs, but instead nekkid little pink things that can't even raise their ginormous heads.  MORE Mojo! »

So we've had the windows open for a week. And hence even if we wanted to sleep in--and today Mojo was a slugabed and slept in until 5:30, due to a stressful day yesterday--our feathered neighbors make sure we don't. First up is this fellow to the left: a pileated woodpecker. In addition to the very loud pecking--if they find a hollow tree they start to resemble a machine gun--the pileated has a very loud, alarming call similar to the sounds one hears in the movies when people are being chased by monsters in the jungle. All this noise comes from a fairly large bird, looks to be over a foot long. They are something to see, and to hear. BUT NOT AT FIVE IN THE MORNING.  MORE Mojo! »

One line from The Simpsons that stands out for me as a good illustration of the stupidity of human beings is when Bart's dog ends up at the school and all the kids in Bart's class gather around to make a big fuss of him. At one point the dog sneezes, and one of the kids says something like "Oh, look! He sneezed!" which causes the teacher, Mrs. Krabapple, to exclaim "Hah! He thinks he's people!"  MORE Mojo! »

"I Love My Country Home"
Pillow-Type Decorative Implement

Yep, every once in a while when Mojo feels up to it we dig deep into her sordid past and bring up some item that failed to sell, all because of her utter incompetence as a sales person. Sure, she likes to pretend she's really witty and fun and people will buy stuff just to be entertained, but for many people she just comes across as obnoxious. And while there is something to be said for her "anti-sales" sales pitch, there is also something to be said for Not Being Stupid.  MORE Mojo! »

Okay, this is slightly gross, but I thought it was funny, so I share it with you.

Sheep Expert and I switched shifts Thursday at the library because one of her ewes finally lambed. So now on top of everything else in my busy life I have to go look at baby lambs. Life is tough.

But the funny thing actually involves the goose she owns. It seems this goose has had a problem recently of being "broody". People who own chickens and geese and ducks know what broodiness is, but for the uninitiated it is sort of a psychological problem, like "false pregnancy", where they get this obsessive idea in their little bird brains that they have to sit on their nest and brood their (nonexistent) eggs. So they make nests everywhere and sit on them and waste away for several weeks waiting for their (nonexistent) eggs to hatch. Whenever you hear of people being "broody" that's where it comes from--just someone who obsessively sits and stares and ruminates until it's not good for them. I'm not sure why humans do it, but having owned chickens myself I am fairly certain they do it because they are stupid. (Mojo's anecdotal theory, with no basis in scientific fact. Possibly biased (and thus rendered unscientific) by Mojo's intolerance for stupidity in all of its sundry and creative forms.)  MORE Mojo! »

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of George's death. I wouldn't have necessarily thought of it, but my husband brought it up this morning and it struck me how much he still mourns for him. And we both do, if you make me think about it. Even though we now have Rosie and she's a very good dog, we both still have times when we wonder where George is, or we hear him in the house, or we think "George isn't going to like it when he sees this".  MORE Mojo! »

"I Love My Country Home"
Pillow-Type Decorative Implement/Apparent Deathtrap

Yeah, I live out in the country. Yeah, we used to have chickens, though we owned Rhode Island Reds and not this generic artist's representation of what appears to be a Barred Plymouth. And yeah, I do rather like my house, despite its many flaws, although I don't think it's quite strong enough to call "love". A family member, say—yes, then it would be love, and quite frankly, I would abandon my beloved country home and live with them under a bridge if the situation warranted. While I enjoy living here, I would not say that about my house. Still, people use "love" to mean lesser sorts of love—like, say, chocolate—so I guess I COULD say I "love" my country home in the sense that, if I DIDN'T "love" it, I would probably move. I mean, duh.  MORE Mojo! »