Sunday, March 11, 2007

Ft. Harrington: Animals Other than Cats

My good friend ronniecat has linked to this nascent blog, saying that it is, among other things, about cats. True enough, but Ft. Harrington has other species, as well.

Chickens, for example.

Another friend, Brian, frequently plunks video clips into his blog. Let's see if I can do the same. What should happen if you click the middle of the image below is this: you'll be taken to a YouTube chicken video equivalent of newage snooze music. You should have the sound turned up for this; it's our chickens settling in for the night, clucking and schmoozing with each other in a very, very relaxing way. If your sound is really turned up, you can hear the ambient background sounds of a typical "Creepy Hollow" (as we call our little valley) evening:



We also have dogs -- including little Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Emma (the ginger "Blenhiem" girl) and her bratty brother, Jax:



And we have the BIG DOG, the watch-meister, the Kelsey, the main man.



Kelsey is a pound-mutt. Seven years ago, when we rescued him from the Santa Clara shelter, he was said to be an "Akita-Lab cross". When we took him to our vet for his first checkup, Dr. Jones laughed and said, "I can see some Akita at the front end and the back end, but there's a whole lot of funny stuff going on in between." Guard dog is his calling, though. Notice him in these pix taken yesterday while Diane was distributing treats (rice chex) to the chickens -- he's the yellow guy in the background, swiveling his head around to make sure no gremlins infiltrate the party. Bless his doggy soul.

5 comments:

Mike said...

The chicken noises brought Ziwa over with a somewhat concerned expression. She hasn't been here long and apparently wanted to see if we keep those in the computer.

Brian Fies said...

That is an unnatural number of chickens.

ronnie said...

Ziwa, hon, he keeps chickens in the 'fridge, but you don't want to know nuthin' 'bout that.

All I know is, when I die? I want to wake up at Fort Harrington. Preferably with Husband, Mojo and Veronica either on-site or on tap.

ronnie

ronnie said...

PS Oh, and by the way: you'll see that A) I've amended the description of the blog (appropriately, I hope) and B) Brian, there is no such thing as an unnatural number of chickens!

ronnie

Sherwood Harrington said...

Mike, a little more than ten years ago I could have a little fun with the Black Freighter by playing one of the few sound files in "Encarta": a wolf's howl. The other cats would ignore it, but BF would scuttle toward the computer and then hiss and bottle-brush his tail.

Brian, the chickens are sometimes way too natural. I'm not altogether happy when Diane lets them all waddle around free like that, because I know I'll have a lot of hosing off to do.

And Ronnie: Kelsey, Emma, Jax, and the girls thank you for their inclusion, but you left out the black widows in the old shed. Maybe better so, actually.