One chicken retained her name, but potentially not her sex. We are no longer certain that Buffy the Vampire Chicken is, in fact, a she. S/he now crows every morning, without fail, between 6 and 6:30, and sounds precisely the way you would expect a barnyard rooster (eh hem) would sound. At the same time, Buffy continues to be the quintessential chicken, being the first to run and hide at the sign of change of any kind.
Our RIR (as those in the chickenbutt world refer to Rhode Island Reds) was rechristened Rock and Roll Chicken and claimed by our four-year-old nephew (to be fair, he named her "Wock and Woll Chicken"). Wock and Woll (sorry) and Buffy continue to be the best of friends, and seldom leave each other's sides. They even sleep together on the same beam in their house.
The two Americaunas were renamed by our ten year old niece "Snowball" and "Snowflake" - "Snowball" being the off-white one (I suppose somewhat reminiscent of a snowball in Chicago, where our niece hails from, guaranteed to never be pure white after the first day of snow). She claimed both snow-related chickens as "hers," and pronounced their eternal friendship. Fact is, the two Americaunas hang out and sleep together as well. Truth be told, the chickens never like to be far from each other, but they definitely have their favorites.
The summer started out in a typical fashion... everyone headed straight for the kitchen.
Chicken feeding was also a popular activity, started early:
Half way into the trip, we took the gang up to Lake Tahoe. Clearly addled by the smoke and haze, we decided to bury the kids:
Such a senseless waste of human life.
Other activities at Tahoe include tennis:
...ping-pong:
..and golfing with the bears:
While in Tahoe, however, one must take great care to avoid the spiders:
If you are captured by spiders, apparently sushi helps you to recover quickly:
Note that our nephew couldn't be bothered with chopsticks, opting instead for the much more direct route. This sushi was enjoyed at Squaw Valley, home of the Winter Olympics, and apparently some very large skiers. We convinced the kids to try out one of their seats:
While in Tahoe, the kids wanted to go hiking, so we explored this trail:
Along the way, we saw these really cool red plants, some of which had little rings of wood around them. We found one and decided to "protect it" ourselves:
Also on the same hike, our niece found a scenic spot and decided a pile of sticks woudl make a nice seat for a weary traveler:
Nearby, our nephew practiced what he learned from Bear Grylls (Man v. Wild) about how important it was to construct a fire to keep your spirits up on those long cold mountain nights:
Thankfully, this was a pretend fire. (Well, to be honest, he was pretty much begging me to light it, but we finally convinced him that a pretend fire was best.)
Also on the trail, we learned a valuable lesson about How Not To Cut Down a Tree:
There are some lovely trails and good bike rentals in Tahoe, so we figured, "What the heck?" Here's the blissful ignorance of youth before we left base camp:
A bit along the trail, we stopped to admire the view. I'm fairly sure the kids were wondering about how to ditch us at this point.
We made it all the way to Squaw Valley -- a distance of 5 miles (one way) -- on just cookies and sheer will:
While at Squaw, we surveyed a house for Noni:
Nahhhh...
Of course, all play and no work can ALSO make Jack a dull boy, we wanted to be sure you knew that some of us brought work with us while on vacation at Tahoe:
More in next post...
