Twitter and Tumblr

so here it is!  our compost pile!  i finally got it started.  see, it's got lots of hay in it.  i've even put some extremely exciting scraps in it, like radish bits and used compostable all-natural dryer sheets.  i mean, this is a happenin' compost pile.  the carbon and nitrogen are totally working it with all the micro-organisms and...

what?

baby chicks?

you clicked on this because you wanted to see gratuitous fluffy baby-avian cuteness from our absolutely precious new baby chicks?
forget the compost heap!  introducing...

Twitter and Tumblr, the french marans (twitter) and ameraucana (tumblr) chicks.  ta daaaa!  twitter is the gray one and tumblr is the reddish brown. i ended up going to callahan's for chicks after all, because i couldn't wait!

twitter is a french cuckoo marans, which (probably) means she will lay dark chocolate brown eggs someday.  the guy at callahan's said she would have 'blue' plumage, and her down is silvery soft.  (marans always has an 's,' even if you're talking about one marans....isn't that weird?)

we got them on monday, and already i've been able to tell that twitter is an interesting little character. at first i thought she was just more shy than tumblr--perhaps a little timid, even--but after further observation, i think she is just a bit of a cynic.  she submits to being picked up, and even snuggles up to one's fingers after a few moments.  but she has a kind of gallic shrug about it all--oui oui, you are huge, i am tiny, you are going to pick me up, eh...l'enfer, c'est le géant .  que existentialiste.  by the way, she will eventually have feather pants.  LOVE. THAT.

 tumblr, on the other hand, is a pistol.  she will run and leap and hop and squirm and yes, even make a paltry (poultry?) attempt to fly to avoid being captured.  but once she is securely in hand, she is quite friendly and inquisitive.  and even snuggly.

if twitter is an existentialist, tumblr is a revolutionary.  she can already fly further than i thought chicks could even dream of flying.  she is, after all, an ameraucana...destined to have spectacular cheek feathers and lay beautiful turquoise eggs.  she will nearly fall asleep in my hand, just to hurl herself in the air toward her home base a moment later.  and she is a tiny reddish-brown poof.

they are cute together in their mini-run on the back porch, trying out their chicken instincts!  tumblr loves to scratch the food dispenser, and twitter is already a bug catching ace.

at any rate, they are a brave new TUFventure, and terribly cute to boot.  i hear they turn into gawky teenage hens in about 6 weeks (4 weeks from now), at which point we introduce them to pearl and ninja.  with the right amount of luck and distraction, that process should go smoothly--and will of course be set down here in detail ad nauseum, dear reader.

other TUF blithers shall be conveyed in the near future: ethical seafood preparations, compostual progress, plant-sitting the neighbors garden (laden with tasty tomatoes!) and a surprising recent grocery store adventure.  and of course (forgive me): updates on twitter and tumblr.  stay tuned!