"Your Skin, Yeah, Your Skin and Bones..."
Jun. 17th, 2010 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psalm_onethirtyoneWhen I went down to see how my hermit crabs were this morning, I discovered that Lance had died during the night, so I buried him in the garden with Percy. The Newport pet store has this deal that if your hermit crab dies in under a week from the time you buy him, you can have a new one free. So since I got him last Friday, I'm going to go in to-morrow and see if I can get a replacement.
I kind of knew he was sick, since he didn't move around nearly as much as Mark does, and he was missing his toes; whereas Mark can (and does) climb absolutely everything, Lance was pretty much stuck on the ground making sad faces. So it wasn't a huge surprise, I knew he wasn't very healthy. On the other hand, he and Mark were getting along really well, which is what I wanted from a second hermit crab, and I worry about personality so much. Ah, well, though. I'll probably do what I did when I got Lance, and spend half an hour in there communing with the crabs anyway before I finally pick one.
Anyway, the thing about being the number one person on this farm not to have an aversion to grossness is that I usually get stuck handling the various hazmat activities. Basically I am immune to touching horribly gross things, and reasonably immune to smelling them, and COMPLETELY immune to talking about them during dinner (SORRY) and the result is that every time something dies or goes back or gets horribly mutilated everyone goes SOUJIN COME CLEAN THIS UP.
So I went into the barn to-day to check on the barn kittens, and. uh. I found them strewn around the stalls with their heads completely gone. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Just. Headless kittens.
Anyway, Daddy said that tomcats usually do that, so that's probably what it was. And I weeded a bit with Maria and then went back to fetch them for burying, since they were already pretty crawly with maggots, and horror of horrors they were NO LONGER IN ONE PIECE! There were dismembered headless kittens all over the place! So I collected them into a box and as I was leaving I saw one leftover kitten hiding under a trough.
I tried to catch it, but it fled, so I set a trap for it with some food and I'm hoping I can catch it that way. It's probably starving, and I'm not sure whether it wasn't the one that ate up parts of the dead kittens. It's a little grey one. I feel pretty bad for it.
So, that done, Maria and I completely cleaned the turkey/chicken shed, which involved two full truckloads of straw and turkey manure being moved from said shed into the gardens. I think Daddy must just throw more straw in when it gets too disgusting in there, but the result is that the stuff ends up being over a foot thick, which is ridiculous. Anyway, we put in fresh straw and then I deep-cleaned the nest boxes, my perennial Disgusting Task. There were lots and lots of rotten turkey eggs, so I took them out in the woods behind the house and threw them at trees. >:D They exploded into greyish yellow fizz and horrific smells, it was really fun.
Aaaand we also did our first hive inspection on the bees! They are doing super well, they have brood EVERYWHERE and it looks really nice, and we actually got to see some bees being born, SO COOL. Also there was even a frame full of honey. We about died from squee. You have to do hive inspections weekly, and we did ours last Friday, so to-morrow is the next one. Since finding out I am deathly allergic, we had to invest in a bee jumpsuit for me. I look awesome, like some kind of space dude with my smoker and bee brush.
And then Maria got me to weed her peanuts and okra while she weeded the corn, and it was actually really fun. Also, the poults and chicks are SO cute. ALSO, I finally submitted my art to the selling place, fingers crossed that that actually works out. I made a giant paper collage paper nautilus!
So to-morrow is work-at-the-library day and get-a-new-hermit-crab day and inspect-the-hive day and maybe-get-my-bike-fixed day and I am feeling reasonably optimistic. My headaches are getting horrifically worse, but I can live with that if everything else is going okay.
I kind of knew he was sick, since he didn't move around nearly as much as Mark does, and he was missing his toes; whereas Mark can (and does) climb absolutely everything, Lance was pretty much stuck on the ground making sad faces. So it wasn't a huge surprise, I knew he wasn't very healthy. On the other hand, he and Mark were getting along really well, which is what I wanted from a second hermit crab, and I worry about personality so much. Ah, well, though. I'll probably do what I did when I got Lance, and spend half an hour in there communing with the crabs anyway before I finally pick one.
Anyway, the thing about being the number one person on this farm not to have an aversion to grossness is that I usually get stuck handling the various hazmat activities. Basically I am immune to touching horribly gross things, and reasonably immune to smelling them, and COMPLETELY immune to talking about them during dinner (SORRY) and the result is that every time something dies or goes back or gets horribly mutilated everyone goes SOUJIN COME CLEAN THIS UP.
So I went into the barn to-day to check on the barn kittens, and. uh. I found them strewn around the stalls with their heads completely gone. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Just. Headless kittens.
Anyway, Daddy said that tomcats usually do that, so that's probably what it was. And I weeded a bit with Maria and then went back to fetch them for burying, since they were already pretty crawly with maggots, and horror of horrors they were NO LONGER IN ONE PIECE! There were dismembered headless kittens all over the place! So I collected them into a box and as I was leaving I saw one leftover kitten hiding under a trough.
I tried to catch it, but it fled, so I set a trap for it with some food and I'm hoping I can catch it that way. It's probably starving, and I'm not sure whether it wasn't the one that ate up parts of the dead kittens. It's a little grey one. I feel pretty bad for it.
So, that done, Maria and I completely cleaned the turkey/chicken shed, which involved two full truckloads of straw and turkey manure being moved from said shed into the gardens. I think Daddy must just throw more straw in when it gets too disgusting in there, but the result is that the stuff ends up being over a foot thick, which is ridiculous. Anyway, we put in fresh straw and then I deep-cleaned the nest boxes, my perennial Disgusting Task. There were lots and lots of rotten turkey eggs, so I took them out in the woods behind the house and threw them at trees. >:D They exploded into greyish yellow fizz and horrific smells, it was really fun.
Aaaand we also did our first hive inspection on the bees! They are doing super well, they have brood EVERYWHERE and it looks really nice, and we actually got to see some bees being born, SO COOL. Also there was even a frame full of honey. We about died from squee. You have to do hive inspections weekly, and we did ours last Friday, so to-morrow is the next one. Since finding out I am deathly allergic, we had to invest in a bee jumpsuit for me. I look awesome, like some kind of space dude with my smoker and bee brush.
And then Maria got me to weed her peanuts and okra while she weeded the corn, and it was actually really fun. Also, the poults and chicks are SO cute. ALSO, I finally submitted my art to the selling place, fingers crossed that that actually works out. I made a giant paper collage paper nautilus!
So to-morrow is work-at-the-library day and get-a-new-hermit-crab day and inspect-the-hive day and maybe-get-my-bike-fixed day and I am feeling reasonably optimistic. My headaches are getting horrifically worse, but I can live with that if everything else is going okay.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-18 04:06 am (UTC)2. You know, I was wondering to myself as I read this entry, "What's the very worst thing in the world? What could it be?" And then I got to DISMEMBERED HEADLESS KITTENS and I thought, "STOP, WE HAVE A WINNER." That is just—I mean—that is a whole galaxy of wrong. D: D: D: D:
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-18 01:04 pm (UTC)I hope you catch the survivor. ;_; Poor thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 02:08 am (UTC)Still working on it. >_
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 02:15 am (UTC)2. Yeahhhhh. It gets worse: they were older than is usual for tomcats to kill, so it may have been rats.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-21 09:11 pm (UTC)2. Since when do rats kill cats?! My horror, it is barely contained. D: D: D:
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-22 02:51 am (UTC)2. Rats do kill kittens, especially if they're hungry. Idk. I am still trying to catch the survivor.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-18 04:21 am (UTC)that's all i got.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-18 09:47 am (UTC)name the next one something like ADOLF so it won't be as sad when it dies. Also, giving it a stupid name is bound to make it last longer.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-20 02:11 am (UTC)His name is Forge after the X-Man. His first move on coming home was to steal Mark's Special Place. Mark is hanging disconsolately off his cork tree, looking sad.