One dog is laying on the couch sharing a pillow with my husband. The other is laying on the back step surveying her kingdom.

The guinea pigs are eating their hay peacefully; however, the collective shrieking for lunchtime veggies will commence shortly.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words:

Kika is 16 and giving no fucks. A hour ago she was doing her late night zoomies, now she’s chilling on my bed.

As the days get colder, the cat rotation system becomes active: Kika goes from my bed to the sofa because her blanket is there, then eventually I’ll grab my duvet, then Siegfrieda comes to my bed.

Old Frieda pic, I’m not waking her up now:

Doggo needed a nail trim so I held him swaddled in a blanket and slowly fed kibbles while my wife worked the nail grinder.

Now he’s watching the front window for anyone who dares to walk by our house.

Well, all the little birdies are doing well.

It’s been a slow week since I keep reinjuring my back, so I haven’t had as much outside time as usual. Since that’s the only time I’m around all three at once, it means there’s less entertainment for me lol.

Big guy is still a rock with legs and wings, regarding his brain power. The marans hen that comes inside for the evening and night is as sassy and wonderful as ever, and had a lot of fun last night.

The volunteer hen is healthy and spunky. She is, however, tired of my shit. Back before I pulled that muscles in my back even worse, I had gone into the chicken run and behind the coop without knowing She was there. This startled her (and me, she rarely goes in there), and she let her displeasure be known by scolding me severely while she waddled off into the shrubbery. Chicken scolding is always funny, but with her cute little bantam butt flicking and wiggling the entire way, while she keeps flicking glares over her shoulder at me, well, I had to sit down or fall over laughing.

She’s normally such a quiet little thing. Just the sweetest buuuk-buk-buk as she pecks around and waits for treats. So her going full fury was beyond my ability to hold in laughter. She’s all of two pounds, maybe six inches high between her wings, with these tiny little feet, but a tail that sticks up to maybe ten inches. And she’s just stomping off with this high pitched but loud brrrrrrrrrrrk brrrrrrrrrrrk brrrrrrrrrk brkack brrrrrrrrrk she kinda coughs in the middle of it.

Since then, when I move around too fast, that’s what she does. The sheer indignant rage of it is adorable. She’s not scared, because I’ve seen how she acts when she’s scared, which is running with no vocalizations to the nearest shelter. She’s just sick of my shit and is not going to stand by while I monkey at her. Which makes me laugh, which makes her angrier, which makes me laugh harder, and the cycle continues until she’s in her favorite tree and squawking at me from afar.

Now, my little angel, she got a new experience last night. I wrote a little story I was extra proud of and wanted to read to my wife and kid. This story had a bit of action to it, and I tend to really get into storytelling.

Baby bird had just come in from outside, and was happy to see me, so she’s walking on me and buk-buking, with the occasional trill. Happy birdy is always wonderful. But I’m launching into this story, doing the different voices and gesturing when I’m not petting her.

I’ve never actually done that around her at all. I rarely read my stuff to my people because it means them stopping what they’re doing, and I ain’t about that. I forget by the time they’re done, so it rarely happens lol.

But this bird got into It. She’s watching me gesture, craning her neck around, she’s bawking and clucking and brrrrring as my voice changes. At one point, I’m doing an alarm sound and she starts jumping around bukabukabukabukaing, then gobbles as I switched to my “robot” voice.

I finish the story, and she’s climbing my chest and just staring at my mouth, waiting for what’s going to come out of it next.

The story is finished, so I settle back and start sweet talking her like I usually do.

She leans in and pecks my lips and bawks. Then she waits a second and does it again. I sweet talk her and pet her, telling her I’m all done. She gets the message, walks across me to the arm of the couch and plops down with a bird sigh. I didn’t even know they could sigh, and it’s a little weird, but she does it, flicks her tail, gives one long baawwwwk, just quiet and gentle, then falls asleep.

Too much excitement for her little body to handle, I guess.

Now, during all of that, I’m having to pause because she gets loud, and my family are laughing at her, and I almost wish we had a camera on, because she stole the show lol.

So, the girls have had some startling exposure to sides of me they didn’t know existed. The big numpty is still a big numpty, but we love him for it.

Ain’t chicken life awesome?