ponies and birds

First, a note to the cat: You know, cat, if you're going to tangle yourself around someone's legs while they are holding a baby, you run the risk of being barfed on. Don't act so surprised. I've been barfed on three times today, and I am not biting anyone.

So,  I've been trying to get Halloween squared away. I don't know what to do in costume aisles. None of the merchandise is clever or good quality, and yet most of it is something I want to buy anyway. I would have a whole menagerie of plastic rats and mangy crows and giant rubber spiders, all dressed in little handmade sweaters. But I get overwhelmed, and then angry at the toddler French maid costumes, and I just start grabbing things and run for it. This time, I left with a dwarf beard, tattoo sleeves, green face paint, and latex viking armor. The kids can figure out what to do with it, or I will wear it all by myself.

I was planning on dressing Zenny as Lydia the Tattooed Lady, one of her lullabies, but then I got sidetracked by paper mache.

Kids are sleeping, make ponies!

I didn't wait until the paint was dry to try it on her, and it turns out acrylic is really hard to get off of babies. I am working on it. 

OH BOY MORE BIRDS

I have put it out there that we need to focus on raptor rehabilitation and get some owls or hawks in here, because they are much more exciting and could keep the cats in line, but my mother keeps coming home with little weenie birds. A week after releasing a pigeon, the cat caught a ratty old mynah bird with a bad wing. Then two days after returning Mundungus the Mynah to the wild, someone gave us an orphaned zebra dove. 

The next day, someone made us take an injured cardinal. 

He's kind of pissy about it, and bites a lot. So now we have three Java finches, three rice birds, a surly cardinal, and a fledging dove. All of them chirping and throwing seeds and shaking bath water everywhere, and none of them producing wool or eggs or anything useful. I'm just putting in my time as caretaker until I can upgrade to a falcon and wear big leather mitts. I will name my falcon Simon, and train it to pluck out the eyes of my enemies. And then I will go make some enemies. Probably by sending a falcon after them. It all works out pretty neatly.