What Nobody Tells You About Beardies

So we have a bearded dragon now.  He's about six months old - born in April, according to the breeder we got him from - which makes him a juvenile. (There are four stages of bearded dragon development - babies are 0-6 mos. old, juveniles are 6-12 mos. old, subadults are 12-18 mos. old, and adults are anything older than that.)  He's about 8-10" long, so he's about an average-sized lizard.  His name is Tom.

Tom is an adventure.

When researching bearded dragons, there are tons of web sites and books on the topic.  They all say approximately the same things.  They have lots of things in common, but the thing that stands out the most is that they are all written by beardie veterans.  They do not tell you what actually caring for a beardie is like, if you've never owned one before.  This will be that post.  Consider it my PSA for the month.

First, you do your research and you try to figure out what you need, but the sources all conflict on that and so you wind up at the pet store buying The Kit.  The Kit comes with a tank, a heat lamp, a UVB bulb, a mesh cover, a food bowl, food (pellets and mealworms and papaya), water conditioner, calcisand (which is calcium carbonate... more on that later), etc., etc., etc.  You sigh and think, "Oh, good, that's everything."  

Except... no.  Then you go find a Reputable Breeder.  We went to a local reptile show to pick out our baby, and the lady there was really, really helpful.  Very informative.  And also very frustrating because she promptly picked apart the kit we'd bought and told us what would and would not work with Doodlebug's new pet.

The mesh lid?  No good.  Because it blocks the UVB rays from reaching the lizard.  (Plus our giant cat that we've lovingly nicknamed Fatty Boomsticks had already jumped on the mesh lid and squashed it, and even though we put it back together... well, those things are never quite the same afterward.)  Oh, and you have to make sure to change out the bulb every six months because the amount of UVB emitted will diminish over time.  The thermometer/hygrometer?  Probably good initially but won't be entirely accurate.  Get a temperature gun for better accuracy.  The calcisand?  Throw it out.  Paper towels work.  I've read since that outdoor carpet is fine.  Our breeder uses - and now WE use - slate landscaping tiles, because #1: you don't have to replace them like you have to replace sand; #2: you don't have to worry about the lizard eating it and getting it impacted in its intestines; and #3:  it keeps the lizard's nails from growing too long.  

I had not even THOUGHT about trimming lizard nails until that precise moment.  I can assure you it wouldn't have happened.  Ever.

Right.  So we take the baby - Tom, now - and a care sheet and a bunch of tiles home, fix up the cage, add the lizard.  Then comes the question of feeding it.  I picked up some turnip greens while I was at the grocery store on the same day we got Tom, and he ate those.  He ate some of the papaya.  What he wasn't eating was the mealworms or the pellets that came with The Kit.

Turns out if you buy from a Reputable Breeder (and I do recommend doing that, by the way... her babies were gorgeous, and we got to pick a really cute one... if lizards can be cute), they like live food.

Right.

Back to the store.

Buy some live superworms and crickets.  Oh, and you have to make sure that the crickets are the right size, because apparently you're supposed to have used calipers and measured the space between the lizard's eyes so you don't get crickets that are too big for your new lizard to eat.  The helpful girl at the pet store will also happily inform you that superworms can eat your lizard from the inside out if they're swallowed whole.  The internet will thankfully dispel that as myth.  What nobody mentions is that after you dust mealworms with calcium - because you have to do that once a day and dust the food with vitamins a couple times a week - and add them to the food bowl, they don't exactly stay put.

Escaping food

Now, if the lizard is hungry, this isn't a problem because he'll chase them down and nom them before they get away.  If your lizard has tanked up on other bugs, though, or greens, or simply isn't hungry, you're left to chase down the rest of dinner before the buggers slip into the cracks and crevices between the tiles and get stuck.  This is why, starting this evening, Tom will be eating dinner and breakfast in a separate container.  Doodlebug and I are tired of chasing down leftovers.

Something nobody else mentions in the care-of-reptilian-creatures pages is that you have to clean poo.  I mean, duh, right?  But apparently if your lizard doesn't poo every day, it's a sign of impaction.  And you know what happens if your lizard gorges itself on too many crickets and/or superworms and gets impacted?  It can die.  And ain't nobody got time for a dead lizard.  To clear an impaction, you fill the sink or a tub with warm, 100-ish degree water, and you let the lizard soak.  And while it's soaking, you have to massage its stomach.  Because the impaction will make itself felt on the left side of the abdomen.  And then your lizard will take a giant crap and feel better.  Please don't ask how I know.

At that point, you clean up the poo before the lizard tracks it all over the cage, and regardless of how quick you are on the poo-cleaning draw, you still have to wipe the cage down with a diluted bleach solution every week or so.

Speaking of water, lizards are also picky drinkers.  Tom seems to be especially picky.  He will not drink from his water bowl.  He will not drink if water is dripped onto his snout during his daily misting.  He likes his baths.  Specifically, he likes to drink from his baths.  But because lizards need water just like the rest of us, he will apparently need a bath... every day.

I swear he's mocking me and all the care I'm putting into
making sure he doesn't bite the big one.

I'm sure that Doodlebug and the rest of us - Tom included - will settle into a routine soon, and then feeding and bathing and cleaning and all of that will become habit.  Right now, though, we're smack dab in the middle of the learning curve.  I just hope there aren't any casualties.

The World's Laziest Corgi

We have a Corgi.  His name?  Speed Bump.

There's a reason for this.

Speed Bump is the world's laziest Corgi.  Part of the reason for this is that when we got him, he weighed between 70 and 80 pounds, so his joints are somewhat older than the rest of him.  However, he's still a Very. Lazy. Dog.

Wut?

 In fact, let me prove to you how lazy he is. An anecdote: I've seen him sit up on his hind legs precisely twice. I've *never* seen him jump. The first time he sat up - and the only time he's sat up on his hind legs without supporting his front legs - was when I offered him a bit of fat from a steak.  I've since offered him bits of fat, and he will not repeat the trick.  Thus, he doesn't get the treat.  Since his entire motivation for living is to eat, this is interesting to me.  The other time he sat up, he was straining to get at our baby chicks.  He didn't repeat that trick, either.

Anyway, since he won't repeat the sit-up-for-food thing, and since we've moved into a house with a staircase that he won't even attempt to climb, I was curious to see if I could motivate him with a little treat.

Cheezy poofs... OK, OK, cheese balls from Sam's Club

I set some cheese balls on our stairs.  I walked around the back of our couch and sat down.  The dog stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up.  Then he walked around the couch and stared at me as only a dog can.  You can almost hear them think when they do that.

"Mom?  Mom?"

"Yeah, Bumpa?" (I call him all sorts of things.)

"There's... there's food on the stairs.  And... and... and I should get to eat it.  Because otherwise the cats will eat it, and if they eat it, they'll urp.  And you don't like it when I try to eat the cat urp."

"Bump, darling, if you want the cheese balls, go get them yourself."

Finally, he huffed a big doggie sigh and went to make sure that the cats hadn't yet eaten the snacks.  They hadn't.  So he came back to where I was sitting.  It took me a while to realize that there was no way he was even going to think about trying to climb the stairs if I was in the room.  So I went to my room and shut the door... except for a tiny, tiny crack.

And I brought my camera.

First, he lay on the floor like the lump that he normally is.  When I wasn't holding the camera up, he couldn't see me, so he'd act normal.  He came to the bedroom door and tried to nose it open.  That didn't work, so he went and sat in front of the staircase.  He'd look at the bedroom door, then look at the treats.  Door.  Treats.

Door.

Treats.

Until finally....

AHA!  He ate one treat.  I closed the door quickly after I snapped this shot, counted to 10, and quietly opened it again.  Bump's front paws were still on the bottom step, and he was staring at the other treats, presumably trying to use his massive brain skills to make the other cheese balls move in his direction.  It didn't work, so he wandered over to the carpet and went to sleep.

He walked away from cheese balls.  I've seen him climb stairs, because he had to do it at the old house to get in the back door.  But no... not here.  World's Laziest Corgi.

My 500th Post

According to Blogger, this is my 500th blog post.  I didn't realize that fact until I logged on to type this, but I think it's fitting, because I like big, round, noticeable numbers.  Also, it's 2012.  I don't believe in the so-called Mayan Apocalypse, but I do believe that this year will be memorable for a couple of reasons.

First, I turn 30 in less than a month.  Speaking of big, round, noticeable numbers, there's one.  I'd like to get my weight down to 150, which is also a big, round, noticeable number.  I'm only 10 lbs. away, so it's technically doable as long as I quit eating Totinos and Ben & Jerry's at 10:30 p.m.  Y'know, things like that.

Second, M2 comes home this fall.  When that happens, I will no longer be a private school mom.  (I've never been a public school mom.)  I will officially be a full-time homeschooling mother.  I'm excited.

Third, we will be moving, and I don't plan to do so again until I'm old and wrinkly and gray.  We have to get lucky and catch the market, but I think we'll do okay.  This is sheer optimism speaking, of course, but I'll take whatever universal vibrations I can get.

Finally, I think this year will be memorable for the animals and people who "shuffle[d] off this mortal coil."  So far, I've lost a cat.  The gerbil is on its way out.  It's been in the corner of its cage since M2 and I cleaned it a couple of days ago, and it hasn't eaten or made a nest, and I haven't seen any evidence that it's drunk anything or used the bathroom, either.  Moving to the bipedal family members, Oz's grandmother and stepfather have been in and out of the hospital several times this year; his mother has been in twice.  My dad's dad is in very poor health (in a nursing home) and my mom's mom may be losing vision in her good eye.  Even if nobody actually passes, all the dominos are being set up to tumble, one after another, and I'm trying to make peace with that.

I won't borrow trouble, though.  No matter how bleak the outlook, I think the overall vibe of this year will be positive, and I don't want to lose sight of that.  2012 will definitely be a stepping stone, a time when I'll look back and think that this is when everything started.  And I'm okay with that.

:)

The "other" pets

The cats tend to get the most press around here, probably because they live in the house and there are more of them than anything else except the chickens, and I tend to think of the chickens as a single collective being/hive mind rather than individual entities. Cats are definitely individual entities. I wouldn't even consider the possibility of thinking otherwise.

After all, they know where I sleep.

However, there are other animals here. Particularly talented beasts, they are.

This one can apparently lick the inside of his own nose. I really could have gone my entire life without knowing that. I know where that tongue goes, and I know that it also likes to lick people. *shudder*

Then there are the aforementioned poultry.

M1 has this one trained to jump up and take food from his hand. He's very proud that he's trained a chicken. I haven't the heart to tell him that chickens will do just about anything for food.

Kinda like this guy. He also will do anything for food.

He doesn't usually get what he wants, though, because he's still a big doggie...

... though I must admit it's a far cry from this photo taken almost a year ago.

Now he can sleep on his back and actually breathe while doing it!

My animals. Spoiled rotten, every one of 'em. But don't tell the cats that. They think they own the place.

The Horse Lady

Every once in a while, I refer to The Horse Lady. I think it's time to introduce her properly. After all, I've been blogging for how long? Oh, OK, let's be honest, I don't keep track of things like that. I barely remember my own anniversary sometimes (sorry, dear... I know I'm the bad one in our relationship). Thankfully I have a back-up anniversary if I really do forget. Long story. I digress.

I hereby introduce K, aka The Horse Lady.

That's my back yard; that's her horse. That's actually the "baby" horse. He's 2. His name is Ace. He's kind of a turd, as 2-year-olds often are. I'm sure many of you can relate. K is trying to work on his stubborn streak, but he's a tad mulish. It must come from his father's side. How do I know?

Because K owns Mama Horse, too. Her name is Cherokee, and she's the sweetest horse ever. She's so steady, I'd trust my kids to run around her without any fear whatsoever. Not that they DO, but they COULD. Cherokee is K's baby now that her own kids are grown and have babies of their own.


She loves Cherokee the best. No mistaking her favorite at all.



Even though Ace likes to butt in now and then for extra lovin' of his own.

The Horse Lady. Animal Lover Extraordinaire. Housesitter (when I'm out of town). Surrogate Grandmother (she claims my kids and has known both of them since before birth, so I can't deny her that).

All in all, I'm happy to know her and to have her horses in my yard. They sort of came with the house, and I've never regretted it!

During the Storm

All right. Oz has promised me that if the kids haven't committed fratricide by the end of the day (they're currently on hiatus from one another in their respective rooms after a game of Battleship ended in a fistfight... M2 tried to change the rules midgame, which threw M1 into a tizzy, which caused her to sass him, which caused him to whack her... ahhh polar opposites... and yes, they have both apologized to each other, but apparently they need a physical wall between them for a while), we'll be going out to dinner. I don't know where, because I don't know which resturants have actually, um, gotten deliveries (kinda like we haven't had mail or trash service all week), and, ergo, don't know which restaurants actually, um, have... well... FOOD.

However. It's enough to make me unearth the photos of the actual horrific entity known as Blizzard 2011 and share them with you.


How cold was it? The chicken coop had to be kept shut all day because the snow was blowing in. We put water in there, but after a few hours it was frozen. When I went out to replenish it, I had to re-unearth the gate because you couldn't even tell that Oz had been there. I honestly thought he must have climbed over the fence because footprints? None.

I set some birdseed out on the front porch, and we garnered quite a few hungry little mealseekers. They would eat a little, then go sit on the bottom of the glider, all puffed up and hiding their itty-bitty birdy feet, then go back and nibble some more.

The cats were beside themselves. I just watched the snow fly up the stairs (what stairs?) and giggled hysterically every time a cat flung itself at the window in a vain attempt at birdcatching.

The dogs had no interest in going outside. When I made them do it, though, they were good and did their business... in one small area out of snow and wind. I really couldn't blame them. I wouldn't want a snowy backside, either. Speed Bump particularly liked that the snow had created a ramp to get in instead of stairs. Less climbing for a chubby Corgi makes for a happy dog.

See the flag blowing behind the trampoline? See the trampoline net flying (and sinking) in the wind (and snow)? Yes. Blizzards do that.

Unfortunately, come wind or snow or sleet or hail, the mail may not be delivered and trash my not get picked up, but horses still get hungry. There was no way that the horses' owner could come feed, so Oz agreed to go out and get them some hay. I stayed in the warm belly of my home and took pictures of him returning to the homestead.




Note the boot that has disappered into the snow...


Welcome back, m'dear!

It was quite a trail he had created.

Tomorrow (or whenever I get to it): Playtime in the snow!

Timing is Everything

Timing is everything: There's a cricket in my living room right now. Dorian Gray found it first. I don't think it's a particularly bright cricket. My first thought was that it was suicidal, but I think that's a projection from all the writing I've been doing, and I think it's actually got a seriously masochistic streak instead. It hopped all around the living room and is now hibernating in a rolled-up piece of paper that's been stuck behind M1's desk all week. All of Dorian's action, which is odd for him, drew the others in, and now the cats are driving me nuts trying to get at the cricket. I may or may not have chunked a blue highlighter, a red ink pen, and my iPhone cord in their general direction to try to get them to stop without actually A) getting up or B) hurting the cats. I'm running out of painless, lazy options on my end table, though, so eventually I'm going to have to move. Either that or the cricket is going to have to get an actual suicidal streak and come out to be eaten. Which means I'll clean up cricket remains in cat urp later. Decisions, decisions. Mostly I'm just happy for the laugh.

Timing is everything: I woke up with a migraine this morning. I hadn't had one in a long time, over a month, but since my migraines are related to a negative drop in air pressure and we haven't had a good low move through in over a month, and when I woke up this morning it was also drizzly and rainy... it all makes sense. The part that sucked was that I also used up my last migraine fixer last time I had a migraine and hadn't refilled the prescription. Thankfully Oz was here. He also had volunteered to take M1 to his swimming lesson today, so I went to bed, zonked out, woke up, took some Aleve, and then called the doctor and pleaded my case with the nurse. I swing by the pharmacy tomorrow. A Boy Scout I am not.

Timing is everything: I made a pumpkin streusel pie today. Pie. Singular. There were supposed to be two of them. I made two pie crusts. I made a big honkin' recipe of pumpkin pie filling. I filled two pies. I even started cooking them like the recipe said - 15 minutes at 450 - and then took them out to cover the crusts with foil. I went to put the first one back in, and in total slow motion horror movie close-up shot, it tilted. The silicone potholders slipped. And 2/3 of the pie wound up splattered over the inside of the oven door. I stopped. I stared. And I chunked the rest of the pie in the trash can. It's just pie, right? Then I had to work out a way to clean most of the mess off the door so I could continue cooking the other pie. For the record, LOTS and LOTS of paper towels will keep you from burning yourself and will get most of the stuff cleaned up, except for the brownish residue you find later, cooked to the inside of the door like a bad spray tan. The other pie came out beautifully. I want to see the glass half full here.

Timing is everything: I might have committed murder today. It wasn't entirely my fault. The thing DID play dead for two days. It was the last fish in M1's tank, and when a fish spends one day stuck to the back of the filter and one day lying motionless and visible on the bottom of the tank, I tend to think it's dead. It is a fish, after all, and I'm not prone to giving a fish the ol' poke-'n'-prod to make sure it is actually dead and cold and infused with rigor mortis. Since it was the last fish, I told M1 that I would empty out the tank for him while he was at his swimming lesson. I got the siphon. I got the bucket. I started draining the water. I got the tank 3/4 empty when I realized that I hadn't yet removed the fish and that it would be easier to remove if I siphoned it up as opposed to trying to grab it with my bare hands, something my son will happily do right before feeding it to bugs or dissecting it but something I don't find nearly as fun. I aimed the siphon at the fish and watched it schloop up the siphon. Halfway. Then, at the last possible second (I'm trying to work up drama here), the fish jerked around and flew back out the bottom of the siphon and parked itself in the only remaining corner with more than an inch of water. I had to pause for thought before realizing that even if I filled the tank back up and put in a new filter and got the whole thing going again, the whole water cycle was going to be completely out of whack and it was going to actually die anyway, and M1 wasn't home, and nobody would ever know, and HEY! We have chickens!

They appreciated the odd little treat.

If the stupid fish hadn't waited till the very last second, it would still be alive.

Timing is, indeed, everything.

NOT for the faint of heart (or those who have just eaten)

I'm not joking.

Really I'm not. If you have any sort of squeamish stomach, you should stop reading now.

Seriously.

I've warned you! If you read on, it's at your own risk. I am not responsible for the contents of your stomach past this line.

Fair enough.

M1 had a fish die the other day. He discovered it behind the neon-colored (and yet often covered by algae) ceramic jar he has on the bottom of his fish tank.

As I was fishing it out - no pun intended - he said to me, "Mom, can I keep it?"

"Can you what???"

"Can I keep it and study the bones?"

*blink*

This is where I realized that I've truly crossed some sort of line in between normal parent and home-educating parent of Science Boy.

"Sure, stick it in the lizard tank."

Now... lest ye think I'm *completely* bonkers, let me back up a tad. When the lizard died a week or two ago, I thought about cleaning out the entire vivarium, but I'm lazy and it didn't happen yet, even though the chickens will enjoy it when I do. The lizard tank had long been a self-sustaining mealworm farm as long as I occasionally threw in some of this stuff we'd bought to feed crickets ages ago, so we had beetles and worms galore scooting around the tank.

And when the lizard died, the beetles and worms... kind of... well...

They munched on it.

So I figured they'd do the same with the fish.

Look away now if you've gotten this far out of morbid curiosity but have a weak stomach in reality.

This is day 1. M1 was very excited to see how quickly the beetles and worms flocked to their new dinner. And he took a picture.


By the next morning, they had completely cleaned out the carcass. Completely. All that was left was skin and bones. The only good thing about this entire process was there was no smell whatsoever! (Ok, so then M1 decided that if the skin was WET, they'd eat the skin, and he sprayed it with water and I freaked about the potential for smell because I don't want Eau de Decomp in my house and told him to leave the heat lamp on so it'd dry out as quickly as possible, which he did and it did and all was right again... well... as right as it gets when you have a dead fish in a lizard tank being consumed by worms and beetles... yeah, I'm special...)

Then M1 took the carcass and parked it under his microscope (I really need to get him a nicer one... but good LORD, they're expensive) and checked it out.
These are his observations. I have told him that as long as he understands his writing - he's dysgraphic - I'm not worried about spelling for things like scientific observations. He likes that. Oh, and he would like you to know that on Day 2, it's supposed to say, "Eyes *GONE* and skin split." Because that makes it better.

Mmmmmm eyes....

Sorry. I do know better. I just can't help myself.
Finally he put the dried out skeleton into a glass jar and wrote a label for it with the common name "golden gourami" on one side and the scientific name "Trichogaster trichopterus" on the other.

And then he threw a fit because I made him learn to pronounce the Latin name properly.

And when his next fish dies, he wants to dissect it so he can see its heart.

Heaven help me, I'm not ready for this. Pass the Latex gloves, surgical mask, goggles, and puke bucket. This could get worse before it gets better.

Oops, I did it again

This post could also be entitled "My Weekend in a Nutshell," but what fun is that? Much more fun to gank the title of a once-popular song by a once-popular singer.

Speed Bump would like to acknowledge that everyone in the house is a little bit cuckoo to begin with. Nothin' like taking a picture of a male dog in fake pink pearls to let you know that your mental status might be a little bit off.

On Friday, M1 and I went down to Oklahoma City to visit Granny. He stayed up late, commandeered the air mattress (I got the couch, which was fine by me because it was quite comfortable), and woke up early. After breakfast, we headed to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. A most excellent place. I highly recommend it. Highly. Photos? Why, yes, I do have a few, thanks for asking. But they're on my phone and I'm not up to the mental challenge of downloading, editing, and posting them right now. I'm a little bit brain-fried.

Oooo fried.

Fried pickles.

Fried pickles with wasabi Ranch...

Caz's Chowhouse...

SQUIRREL!

I'm a little bit ADHD this weekend. Just a tad. I haven't been able to sit still for more than five minutes since M1 and I got home.


I've been busy making this giant pile of mess otherwise known as Stuff That Needs to Go to Goodwill. Except for the Doodleboard and the markers. Because if I got rid of M2's art supplies, she'd probably tear me limb from limb.

Except that she hasn't thrown a fit since Thursday. I'm in shock. Me likey the meds. I think she does, too.
Here's the trash pile that went along with the Goodwill pile.

I cleaned out EVERYTHING. I started in the utility room with one cabinet. Just one. And then the urge to purge morphed into a very large, ugly thing that kept me busy for hours and hours, which was a good thing because I was feeling a very unexpected and involuntary urge to cry every time I sat down, but my goodness... the productivity!!!
This is that first cabinet. I started with the middle shelf because it had stuff falling out. I found fourteen... FOURTEEN... packages of catnip. They all came with the corrugated scratching boards that we buy, and I have a mild case of Hoarders. It's genetic. I'm fighting my very core to throw these things out. It's a big step.

This was the last cabinet that I did today. It had a box of eight glasses in it before as well as almost everything you see here. The glasses are now in the kitchen cabinets (which I also went through) where they belong. I also purged a tablecloth, 10 placemats, and a table runner. The fact that two sets of silverware (one silver that was my grandmother's and one stainless steel and gold that I got for free), six tablecloths, eight napkin rings, eight placemats, 24 napkins, and a whole set of paper goods still fit in this tiny cabinet is testament to my mother's influence. This is the stuff I couldn't part with because I *use* it.

Hoarders, I tell you. I've just learned to hide it well. OCD hides many a hoard.

This is my proudest accomplishment. Every shelf of this had books falling over the edges before I started. Now I have room to spare.

Oz, be warned. Space in a bookshelf MUST be filled. That's not hoarding; that's a neeeed. I'm sure a trip to the bookstore is in my future.

OK, so it was probably in my future, anyway, but I'm all for pretending.

Just like I like to pretend that the house is clean now. Never mind the fur wads on the floor or the toothpaste fingerprints on the bathroom mirror or the overflowing trash cans or the dishes in the sink. The important thing right now is that when I open up any drawer or cabinet in this house, nothing falls out!

Other things 'they' don't tell you about chicks

I've learned a few more things about chicks over the past week. Things that 'they' don't tell you on the lovely education sites that are run by people who have been raising chicks for years and have forgotten what newbies *really* want to know.

1. The darn things grow FAST. Remember how teeny-tiny they were originally? This is four days later.


FOUR days later, and they've got half their wing feathers in.

This is day 9. They can already fly up and sit on a perch. Or the top of the feeder. Or the top of the watering container. And sit there. And poop in the water. Or the food. They are also learning to take catnaps (chicknaps?) standing up, which is hilarious because they look like little bobbleheads and one day I swear I'm going to walk out and watch one plop headfirst into the bedding, and I might laugh, just a little. And then I'll feel compelled to make sure it's still alive.

2. Moving on, nobody tells you how much they EAT and DRINK, either, to grow this fast (still day 9, by the way). They go through about 1-2 quarts of food and water per day. Which isn't a lot divided among 12 chicks, I suppose, but still. It seems like all I do is provide refills.



3. Baby chickens learn to scratch very quickly, and it's a HUGE mess. I have to clean out the water and food containers several times a day because they fill them up with bedding. The scratching can be a whole lot of fun, though, especially if you're like me and see them doing it and are inspired to help them along.

M1 has a lizard. Specifically, it's an anole. Even more specifically, it's a picky eater of an anole who likes to leave the mealworms in the bottom of its cage and eat the crickets and other occasional bugs M1 finds before going back to mealworms as a last resort. So we have a thriving mealworm colony that I just have left alone because it saves me the effort and money of buying new ones that it likely won't eat, anyway.

Adult mealworm beetles make great chick treats. I advise you to watch the video. Even if you aren't amused by the chick running around with a beetle in its beak trying to find a place to eat it in peace, you might enjoy the dialogue between M2 and her daddy in the background. He's sitting on a giant Sam's Club container of cat litter and, well... you'll just have to listen for yourself.

I promise he's not being cruel...

Let me introduce you to the basics of my son.

He has Asperger's. That means that when he has pictures taken,

he tends to freeze into one position. Notice the lack of emotion on his face? Let me assure you he was a very, very contented boy at that moment, no matter what his face might be telling you.

Now, whether Speed Bump would agree with that whole 'contented' thing is another story.

By the way, meet Speed Bump, the giant Corgi who is becoming less giant and more active by the day. He can run up the back steps now instead of taking five minutes to climb them!

Back to the boy... so Asperger's boy is scientifically-inclined. And he also has ADHD, mixed type, which means impulse issues abound.

And when you combine a massive lack of impulse control with a boy who wants to scientifically test EVERYTHING....

you get...


This.

Let's play a game with this photo. It's called "Find the Whiskers."

That's right... THOSE whiskers. The ones my son trimmed because he had NO idea it was potentially harmful to a cat... and he wanted to see what happened if a cat had short whiskers.



"Mom... make him stop using me as a tester, k? Thx."

Poor Hermes. Thankfully his whiskers will grow back, and... well, this is going to sound horrid, but at least M1 did a wonderfully symmetric job of it, right??? Hermes' jumping abilities haven't been affected in the least, as I verified the day after I discovered the whisker-trimming job when Hermes parked his busybody butt on the top of my 6-ish-foot dresser.

As a girlfriend posted on my Facebook the other day when I mentioned I was having a rough time: "I don't think Einstein's mother had it easy, either."

I like the way her mind works.