Good morning! (I forgot to record the sound at first — oops.) Good morning to you, too. Basil, if you don’t answer, I’m coming in! It’s raining lightly today.
Flowers and vegetables for the tortoises
Today I bought flowers and vegetables for the little ones I recently started keeping — tortoises that will someday be giants. Yay! When I looked it up, I learned they eat flowers like pansies and violas, both the blossoms and the leaves. They also like bok choy, and a leafy green called collard greens here in America. Since they eat vegetables, I’m going to try planting some.
Their new playground
Look — I added a fence. This is now the tortoises’ playground. It used to be a flower bed, but when I put the tortoises in it, it looked so nice that I fenced it in. Last time, without a fence, I let them roam, and one of these tiny, slow creatures got two meters away and hid deep in the grass of a bush. I thought I’d lost it and cried my eyes out, so now there’s a fence.
First I carefully cut some grass for the guinea pigs, then planted the flowers, with Sora working right alongside me. The vegetables need to grow a bit more first, or they’ll be eaten to death, so I planted those outside the fence. Looking good!
Now let’s bring in the tortoises. Earlier, lots of ants came out and attacked them, so they had to have another quick bath. Here are your new flowers! One heads straight for them. Is it tasty? It plods along slowly. I can’t quite tell what it’s thinking — eating? Digging? Why are you digging? “Goodbye, I’m going back underground”? Well, as long as you’re having fun. (If you dig, you’ll find ants.) The reaction is a little flat; maybe they’ll perk up when it’s warmer.
Meet Sora
This is a member of the third-generation chick-opening team I introduced the other day. While living outside she picked up eyeworm (a parasite that infects the eyes), and she doesn’t seem to see well, which makes her look a bit like she’s frowning.
The lady who brought her had given her a name, but I forgot it. For a moment she looked light blue and brown to me, like the sky, so I call her Sora (“sky”). She was completely wild until about three weeks old, yet she’s very friendly — maybe partly because she can’t see. Here she is playing in a pile of sawdust I made. Careful, you’ll bump into the wall again!
Say hello to everyone, Sora — and you too, tortoises! Thanks for watching Chicken Paradise.