Dan is one month old today!

It was a lazy, cloudy weekend. We didn’t do much of anything at all, just laid around watching tv and napping. I had lots I wanted to do, but the lack of sunshine is really getting depressing. We’ve fallen in this weather pattern of cloudy and rainy all day and breaking sunshine in the far northwest when the sun finally dips low in the horizon and below the cloudline around 9 or 10 pm. It’s truly irritating.

I’m trying to get in the habit of taking photos and carrying a camera again. It’s been a couple of years and I’m always leaving it behind. I’ve missed some really cool shots, too. I saw a family of Canadian geese on the Muldoon curve, drinking from a puddle on the shoulder of the road. The gosling’s looked to be about 6 to 7 inches tall and were so cute! But no camera. Then there was the Ron Paul supporter’s car I saw at Red Robin. It had one of the cooler back window graphics I’ve seen (I usually hate those). The ‘revolution’ part had the evol reversed to spell love. It was cool. I had to giggle when I saw another sticker in the back passenger window that said, “9/11 was in inside job.” Again, no camera. But anyway, I did take it with me on a walk with Skwishey and Ichi. It’s not easy to shoot when you’ve got a hyper terrier in striking range of a very bad kitty on the other end of the leash. So forgive the soft focus please.

Dan got a new home today. He was too far removed from the family in a cardboard box in the spare bedroom and I really want him socialized and friendly. So today I took the 1 gallon fish tank I normally use as a fish nursery and turned it into a quail brooder. He now sits behind my computer desk and I can turn and talk to him throughout the day.

Some of the chick feed is too big for him to eat and we both quickly learned why they call it ’scratch’. He kicks it everywhere looking for the best and smallest pieces. It’s working, and he has gained a gram a day since he hatched and finally passed his initial egg weight of 8 grams to a hefty 9 grams. He’s gonna be huge!

I keep saying “he” when I really want it to be a her. Eggs! We need eggs! When that first egg arrives, Dan Quail will evolve into Danquail. That’s kind of feminine, isn’t it?

7 grams

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