Smazy Days of the Blast Furnace

Its so wonderful to wake up in the morning, stretch, yawn, and then look out into the bright lovely new day. Sun is shining under bright blue skies and you can hear the chickens clucking to be let out. Birds are singing, and the tractor addicted neighbor is outside ripping something to pieces. Sounds nice right? Well forget it. This will be week three of smoke, heat, and the disturbing feeling of sunburned lungs for me. Outside the window next to me is a swirling mass of malignant noxious yellow grey smoke (Thanks to you 10,000 acre fire. I raise my inhaler to you), full of fine particles that would make even the most brave hearted flee the scene. There is no night breeze to cool things down. There is only 100 degree dry heat out there, and it was worse at work. 10 degrees hotter. Imagine cranking up a walk in oven to 300 degrees, leaving all those burnt left overs in there. Now walk in... It literally feels like a blast furnace and smells like a baking experiment gone horribly wrong. So, what you do in fact wake up to are the clouds of Venus, yellow and deadly, swirling the air. Birds choking instead of singing... and my tractor addicted neighbor is still out there ripping something to pieces. Absolutely no worries about his own health I suppose... Eh.

Since its freaking hot, and we have no air conditioning in the house, I've been cooking the dogs given that I can't let them outside in all the smoke for too long. Otherwise they come in coughing and choking just like the birds. To show them just how much I appreciate their dedicated drive to melt, I got them these weird little mats that supposedly give off the feeling of being cool. I may just shove them off those mats and use it myself tonight given my sleep deprived state and my total devotion to being greedy. I jest. Stop eyeballing my blog like that.

I wonder if those mats would work for chickens? Hmm, its a thought. We'll see how well they work.

Speaking of chickens, I finally have pictures of the feather balls. Specifically the chicks with all their feathers in, and looking mighty fine. Except for Super Peeper who appears to have acquired the ire of a fellow chick. Make a wild guess who is denuding said SP? That's right. The insane Cochin, who we call curly. For a while there we thought she was a frizzle because her feathers were curly/twisted. Curly follows SP around and plucks his tail feathers while he's not paying attention. Its like watching siblings. "Hey, pay attention to me. Me! Here! Stop looking for bugs damn it! Look at ME!" Suspicions run high as to whether or not this is the reason for SP's total and complete lack of spine. Hmmm. More things to ponder.

One last note of no particular interest, but my Dad found a little visitor in one of the plastic garbage cans we use to store the chicken feed. Cute as a button. .. To me at least. WARNING: If mice scare you until you are unable to do anything but shriek, drool, and mumble incoherently DO NOT SCROLL DOWN FURTHER. If you must scroll down, please do so quickly to avoid permanent damage to the psyche.

And now... a Deer Mouse for your viewing pleasure. ;)

Hope your lungs all have a better day than mine. :)

PS. The chicken is a Dark Brahma. LOVE the color pattern!