wideeyedfunk

Tag: dermestid colony

  • The benevolent dictator at Christmas.

    My absolute dominion over the thousands of beings in my WidedEyedDemesne is of the gentlest nature. This is my moral and ethical choice – as you know, with great power comes great responsibility. In the holiday season, I strive to make the lives of my WideEyedSubjects shine brightly.

    For Hamish the Corgi, a stuffed Olaf the Snowman waits under the tree – Sven the Reindeer is sitting next to him, having no notion that he is a gift for Miss Tibbit and that his days are short. Fitz (the betta fish are always named Fitz) will have a new moss ball. Wiggins the Ancient Cat received a teeth cleaning and three extractions – the vet tells me this was a gift of life. This almost made my heart swell in direct proportion to the shrinking of the WideEyedTreasury.

    Innocents waiting under the tree.
    Innocents waiting under the tree.

    The hundreds of red wigglers in the worm bin, so content to ooze in the dim moistness – I’ve got three eggs shells and some mushroom stems for them. Wiggle worms, and squirm. Enjoy your holiday feast and think warm thoughts of my largess as you produce compost for the territorial gardens.

    And my dermestid subjects, my thousands of loyal flesh eating beetles, for generations of their heritage I ’ve cared for them. Do they have oral histories of their arrival into my territories? Do they teach each new larval group of the great hand which delivers food and water under a searing bright light? When food grows scarce and all flesh is consumed from the skeletons, do they pour libations and perform sacrifice to me?

    Dermestid territory, let the feast begin!
    Dermestid territory, let the feast begin!

    My dermestids will be pleased with any gift, but I want them to grow and prosper and be content in the coming winter for my freezer is full of specimens to deflesh and I’ll need the hungry bellies of their young. I thought long, resting my chin in hand, what will please them? Ah, it came to me…the bison head, the fine fats and proteins of the bison brain, rare and rich gifts that all can share.  Feast well my small subjects!

    Merry Christmas Friends. May you also have a fine day of love, kindness, and feasting.

  • Chickens three ways.

    Chickens. The WideEyedSpouse won’t let me have any. We have the space for a microflock and someone has to eat all of those extra worms in the worm bin. Which, if you recall, was also forbidden by the Spouse. He believes he has some power over the goings on of the WideEyedHousehold. Funny.

    Chickens were in my life three ways today.

    Chicken1The Caribbean chicken spends most days with me. I carried that one from his home rolled in a tube. I took the Caribbean chicken to a frame shop here in Buffalo and I’m pretty sure that when we unrolled the canvas, sunshine and cheer glowed out at us. The framer laughed, couldn’t help herself. Sometimes I worry that I brought only one Caribbean chicken home. There were a dozen or more – we were left in the back room of a little gallery to flip through the canvases and pick which chicken would be moving to Buffalo with us. Do the others miss our little red chicken? Have they moved to homes in Paris, Kansas, Toronto, Heidelberg?

    The next chicken in my life today simultaneously was glorious and wretched. Chicken 2, yeah we’ll call it Chicken 2, was a well-picked over carcass reeking of Myron Mixon’s smoked chicken rub. Except that that happy delicious reek which originated in our backyard smoker was overlain by the stink of rotting meat. And visually, I can’t even begin to explain the nightmare of the appearance of Chicken 2. See, Chicken 2 currently resides in the flesh eating dermestid beetle colony in the lab at the university. We’ve taken to roasting whole chickens around here so that I have food for the little beetle guys when our road kill supply runs low. They ate the Canada Goose and we haven’t skinned the raccoon yet, so bony little carcass Chicken 2 is squatting in the tank under a shroud of moving black beetle carapaces. Looking at it is mesmerizing, like watching the tide but less comfortable than that. You can really feel them creeping around on your own person, a gift that keeps giving for hours of psychological twitches. So that was Chicken 2.

    Probably the last chicken in my day, Chicken 3, arrived just before dinner. I sort of hope this is the last chicken of the day, because otherwise we are moving into weird territory. Chicken 3 is printed on a chair in the Anthropologie catalog. I instantly wanted it. If I can’t HAVE chickens, I should be able to SIT AMONG chickens, right? This makes perfect sense to me and perhaps you can understand why the WideEyedSpouse’s life is made complicated sometimes. Chicken 3 is going to haunt me and there’s a good chance that when I have the new yard sale settee recovered, it’s getting chickens.

    Settee

    Yeah, chickens.