An Interesting Monday

Today was eventful, the sort of day that breaks up what can otherwise become pretty monotonous. The downside is that I didn't manage to put much time into actual work.

Several years ago, when Exotic Newcastle Disease was threatening California's poultry, the CDFA came out here and videotaped a public service announcement about it, starring one of my birds (a single comb Brown Red Rosecomb). I never actually saw it on the air, I think it got more air time in Southern CA. If you saw it though, that was my bird...

Anyway, back in April they called again and asked if they could come out here and film one about Bird Flu. I said yes, and then when I didn't hear from them for a couple months I gave up.

Friday they called again and asked if they could come out and shoot the PSA on Monday (today). I agreed to it, and proceeded to tame a bird in record time. I didn't have any particularly friendly birds, so I brought "Pablo" a BBRed Rosecomb into the house and he lived in the kitchen over the weekend, and sat on a portable perch in here when I was working on art, and pretty much spent as much time with me as possible.

And it worked. He was great today, very well behaved. He perched on the front fence while the spokeswoman stood next to him and said the 30-second Bird Flu stuff. I was very pleased to hear that it wasn't a "panic, panic, we're all going to die" message, as seems to be common in some circles, but instead was very practical, gave a hotline phone number for reporting problems, urged people to be vigilant, and not to handle sick or dead birds. So really more or less the same speil that was said about END, and West Nile. Anyway, so they showed up a little after 10 and were here til a little after noon shooting the PSA in English and Spanish. Everybody loved Pablo. So be on the lookout for this thing to air eventually!

Anyway, then I went off and did a photo shoot at the saddle shop, came back and worked a bit, moved some birds around and moved a bunch of youngsters outside, sat around and yacked about horses with E.H. for a long time, and the next thing I knew it was late and here I am.

I had a TERRIBLE hatch today, I think there must have been a temperature problem that I didn't know about. I candled them before I moved them to the hatcher and almost half were dead. :-O That's very abnormal, so I'm not sure what the issue was. *sigh*

Shylah is going to get a real riding lesson tomorrow, a two-person operation. Keep your fingers crossed.