Autumn Hit Our Yard Like a Truck

Deep red Japanese maple leaves glowing in the evening sun.

Japanese maple leaves turning fiery red and orange over our deck in the backyard.

Witch hazel and maple leaves turning gold and red.

A little blueish snail on some fallen leaves.

Jasper and Lapis, two of our extremely mini serama chickens, havin’ a grand old time in the leaf litter.

Bismuth, our other little serama lady.

And last but not least, my little shoulder vulture, Peridot. She also likes the pretty Fall leaves and spends as much time as possible hopping around in them while muttering to herself. She pecked me in the eye about ten seconds after I took this picture, and she’s not sorry.

A Quick Visit and Some Very Cute Chickens

I visited my family in California this week and had a nice time. My grandma is almost ninety one, and has been losing some of her memory, so I’m trying to spend more time down there. Her memories are important, and I want to take some of them on when I can.

That means flying, which I’m generally not a fan of, but it’s more efficient than spending the better part of four days driving down to the Bay Area and back. Seeing my family is worth it, though, and having my ADHD under better control means that getting to flights on time and handling the bustle of a chaotic airport is less intimidating than it used to be. It also makes it easier to plan ahead to take my anti-nausea meds in time, because, oh boy, does flying play merry havoc with my inner ear.

While I was there, I also got my meet the newest batch of miniature chickens in my friend’s backyard farm. They’re only about a week old, or they were when I met them, but they’re also seramas, a breed of chicken that don’t typically get much bigger than large pigeons as adults. Their babies are impossibly tiny and adorable.

A little sketch of one of her hens watching over the babies while they practiced their very important pecking skills.

One of the serama mamas giving me a good eyeballing for being near the chicks. Her hens tend to sit on their eggs in pairs, so the chicks always have two mamas to watch over them.

This chick seemed mostly okay with being held. They’re so soft!

The yellow chick had some rather loud objections to me holding her, so I returned her to her little family pretty quickly. She’s still totally my favorite of this clutch.