A Major Project Completed!

Finally! After three weekends of work, we have a chicken coop! Currently residing in it are eight chickens: Our three Orpingtons, our four Silkies, and one of the Rhode Island Red roosters, whom my son had named Jack. The other three are not going to be moving in with their companions, however; instead, they will be taking a trip to Tignish next Thursday and coming home in plastic bags on Saturday to spend some time in the freezer.

We spent most of the day finishing it up; 'all' we had left to do today was put on the front wire mesh and the door. And rake out the dirt. And install a brooder box for the layers. And move the chickens. And fix the door after it wasn't working properly. And keep the dogs out. And chase the chickens who took advantage of their momentary freedom to run around the yard like...well, like chickens.

Here's a picture from the side of the coop that I took after we'd gotten the new residents in their home. They've got lots of space to roam around in, and they are already considering the new pecking order as the Silkies are having their first chance to meet the other birds.

Those are the Silkies closest to me. The kid in the green shirt is Tanner, who is over with the Orpingtons and Jack. The one in the orange shirt is Ashton, who is putting the finishing touches on the door. The one in the purple shirt is my wife, who isn't in the picture. Tanner spent about half an hour in with the chickens; it's nice that there's finally a decent amount of room for them to move around.

For the next phase, we're going to cut a door for them in the wall that leads to the area between the barn and the garages. Dannielle wants to put a pair of fences, one at each end, to give the chickens a huge outdoor area to play in. I think we can do it before winter, which would be nice to give the chickens some outdoor time. And they'll be free-range, which means they'll taste better.

Here's a closeup of Tanner having fun with his new friends.

That's Jack noshing down with his face in the food. He survives only by the grace of getting a name before we could stop it from happening. We haven't been able to get any Rhodie hens here on the island; we might order some eggs or chicks to come in from somewhere else, if that's what it takes to give him some playmates. And of course, my wife decided to get a rooster for the Orpingtons so we can breed them. And with the magic of chicken math, she turned one rooster into two chickens. Don't ask me how; it's a gift.

Yeah, this farming thing is really making a difference in our lives. The whole family worked on this project; even Garrett was out here participating in his own unique way. It wasn't easy, and I'm sore as hell, but it's worth it. I don't miss the city in the slightest, which is a sentence I never dreamed I would say, not in a million years. But, here we are.

Under the Darkest of Suns...

Growing up, I was a huge D&D player. Or, at least, I loved to play when I had the chance. And when I didn't have a group to play with (which was, sadly, the case more often than not), I worked on my own campaign ideas and compiled rules and (especially) spells for my favorite wizards. I played both BECMI and AD&D without discriminating between them, and Mystara was always my favorite published campaign world. And I played either 1st or 2nd edition AD&D without caring which was which, since they were so close to 100% compatible anyway. There were some things that didn't work, but they were easy to get around.

First edition was about adventures and pushing the boundaries of the rules; expansions like Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures gave us a lot of new options, some of which were welcomed, others which were reviled. To this day, 1985 is still seen as the dividing line between 'real' AD&D and the '1.5' edition. For myself, I embraced it all, because it could all be used for fun.

Second edition was different. Sure, there were rule expansions all over the place; 2e gave us the 'splatbook' phenomena, where we would be provided with more than a hundred pages of information on a narrow topic (fighters, elves, necromancers, castles, historical settings, etc.). But what comes to mind when you think of 2nd edition AD&D? The campaign settings.

At the end of 1st edition's era, there were Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and the Forgotten Realms (and Mystara, though it wasn't called that yet, for BECMI). Kara-Tur, the Oriental setting, was stapled onto the FR setting, and that was about it (aside from the million or so homebrew campaigns out there). All three settings were popular, all three were pretty straightforward fantasy with minor tweaks.

But right off the bat, 2e provided us with Spelljammer and Ravenloft, one of which would go on to be super-popular, the other one...not so much. But they had this in common: They weren't generic, typical fantasy settings like the 1e worlds. Spelljammer was elves in space, with a mechanic that I later learned was based on old scientific and pulp-fiction theories of how space travel would work. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't interested in it (give me the generic stuff). As for Ravenloft, I wasn't into horror as a kid or a teenager, so it never got my attention.

The next world, however, was completely different, so different that I, in my narrow-minded view of fantasy, was repulsed by it. Dark Sun, a post-apocalyptic setting where the characters are totally overpowered and psionic powers are ubiquitous. Remember, this was in the days before the Pulp Renaissance, when an entire generation of readers had been trained to see Tolkien as the beginning and end of fantasy literature, where door-stopping series of epic fantasy were the only way to read in the genre. Dark Sun was completely out of that mind-set, and I wasn't ready for it.

Fast-forward to today, and while I'm still not 100% sold on Dark Sun, I can appreciate its roots a lot more. After all, the fantasy genre as we know it didn't start with Tolkien, but Burroughs, who began with the Barsoom stories set on what was essentially a post-apocalyptic Mars, with mental powers and strange creatures, powerful warriors and very little clothing. While Dark Sun isn't set on Mars, it's certainly drawing a lot of inspiration from stories like John Carter, as well as the same works that inspired the Gamma World game, Mad Max movies, and other wasteland settings.

The other thing about Dark Sun that stood out to me was the way magic worked: It sucked the life from plants and animals around it. Magic-users come in two flavors: Defilers and preservers. The preservers work to minimize the ecological damage; the defilers just wreck everything in their wake and quest for more power. It was a pretty not-subtle look at the enviropolitics of the early 1990s. But it was different, and I've come to understand that different isn't all that bad after all.

So, in my endless quest to compile everything D&D related (the official stuff, that is) up until the advent of 3rd edition, I've finally encountered the Dark Sun material. And, since I was hoping to put everything together into one single campaign, I've struggled with coming up with a way to integrate the magic-blasted landscape and different style of magic with the rest of the game's settings. How do you put Dark Sun on the same world as the Forgotten Realms, or Spelljammer?

Well, there are two possibilities, one of which is actually forbidden by the rules (either officially or in a Dragon magazine somewhere; I can't remember). First, Dark Sun is just another world that can be reached via Spelljamming. That's the one that was nixed by TSR, probably because of the power imbalance between Dark Sun and everything else.

The second one, and the one I'm inclined to go with, is that Dark Sun is, literally, the post-apocalyptic campaign world. As in, it's the distant future of the campaign setting, much like the Dying Earth books of Jack Vance are the far-distant future of Earth. It's a nightmarish future, one that would serve as an excellent object lesson for time-traveling heroes who find themselves trapped in the gladiatorial arena under Tyr, or stranded on an island in the Silt Sea.

This would explain the multitude of weird, psionic creatures that appear in the Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium. Some of them are just mutated versions of regular animals (like the Athasian Sloth, which is a giant, carnivorous killer) or 'regular' D&D monsters. It wouldn't be hard to come up with a story that allows PCs to experience Athas, and find out that there's a way to prevent it from becoming the actual future of their world.

I'll be giving Dark Sun a closer look in the future, because while it's still not a setting I'd want to run a full campaign in, there are a lot of interesting ideas therein, and it will certainly be worth reading the inspirational source material. Because it's pulp, and pulp is best.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures Review

Finally wrapping this up, and then I've got the Hub to finish off as my graduate thesis for original Traveller. I found this book to be pretty interesting, as there was some stuff that I felt should have come up in a different book, and the world generation stuff was quite short compared to the animal generation section.

The world generation was pretty comprehensive, despite only being a dozen or so pages. There is a lot of information on a world even with just a short string of numbers. It's an efficient way to present enough information to start the creative juices flowing, while at the same time leaving plenty of openings for originality and unique environments. The same set of rolls for a world could produce a variety of differences just in how they're presented. The generation system works well, and the connections between the different modifiers are logical.

The government types cover the most common ones that we've seen on Earth in the past or the present, but there really isn't anything new. The system's main flaw, in my opinion, is the population numbers. The majority of worlds are going to be colonies with smaller populations; there's no modifier for population based on world size, or anything else. You could have a barren rock, 2000 miles in diameter, with a low tech level and no water, with a population of 10 billion. Now, it's possible that those 10 billion live underground, or they're aliens of some sort that are fine with those living conditions; rock people, for example.

And that's the game's other primary flaw: No mention is made of intelligent alien life. No Vulcans, no Wookies, no Daleks...the rules just assume an entirely human population. I mean, of course that's possible, especially if we're the only intelligent life in the galaxy, but this is science fiction; I expect to see aliens. True, there wasn't much room in the box for them; all three books are stuffed pretty well, but even a single page with ideas on how to create and integrate alien life into the game would have been nice to see.

Now, there are aliens of the animal variety, but not intelligent ones. And the animal generation system is, I think, one of the game's strongest aspects. Instead of focusing on what something looks like, the focus is on what kind of animal it is and what it can do. You can have an alien lizard that has the characteristics and personality of a lion, for example, a solitary hunter that lives in a pride-like social structure. Or a bird that has the abilities of a chameleon. There are an insane number of possibilities for animals in this game. It reminds me of the way the Champions game structures its powers; the focus is on the effect, not the cosmetics.

Then there are the psionics. I'm still a bit torn on these; psionics have never really been an interest of mine, even though I know they are cool powers and psionicists have a whole raft of options available to them. But there are some abilities that can be extremely dangerous to a character, like that brutal Assault power from a telepath, which can take out anyone who doesn't have a very strong mental defense themselves. The other powers are pretty well-balanced, although teleporters will prove to be a pain if they get to a high enough level.

All in all, Traveller looks like a very interesting and fun game to play; I'm hoping to get the chance to do so at some point. There aren't many gamers around here out in the country. Still, it's worth a try, and I can always set up something online. I'm looking forward to learning more about the game and how it actually plays.

I won't be going through more of the Traveller stuff, since I'm aware that it goes heavily into the Third Imperium setting. When I do play, it will be based on these three rule books. I might add some more weapons and equipment to fill out the lists, but otherwise, there's enough here to keep a game going for quite a while in the old-school style.

So, that does it for this read-through of the original Traveller boxed set. I hope that those of you who followed the whole series got something out of it; I certainly enjoyed the journey myself. And it's provided me with some inspiration for my own science fiction writing, which you can see in Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, available now in paperback or ebook formats from an Amazon website near you. Check it out, and support indie publishing, because that's where the best new writing is to be found.

A Huntress Awakens...

I've heard it said that when a person moves to the country, it changes them in some deep, fundamental way. I suppose that's true; I certainly never expected to be crawling around in dirt yanking thorny plants and grass out of the ground so my tomatoes and peas could have some less competition. And I definitely never expected to wake up to the dulcet sounds of a punk-rock chicken crowing at six o'clock in the morning.

Yes, a punk-rock chicken. Behold:

This is a stock image, not our actual chickens. But these are silkies, and as you can tell, they look like they just got home from an 80s' retro party. We have four of them, which we got for a final cost of nothing whatsoever. They're young, not yet laying eggs, and there are two hens and two roosters. We'll see if we end up with more at some point. The big barn coop isn't done yet; it's tough to work on it when both Ashton and I are working full-time jobs. We'll have to try to get it done on the weekend, if we can find the wire mesh to finish it off.

But this post isn't about chickens, or about vegetables. No, it's about Raven, our puppy-girl. She's nearly eight years old now, and she's having the time of her life out here. Instead of a tiny fenced-in backyard where all she has to look forward to is our nightly walks, she can go outside during the day and run around for hours, exploring the terrain and still not exhausting its possibilities. But today...oh, today was something different.

My wife and I were dealing with chicken stuff (food, water, etc.), and the dogs were wandering around as usual. Then Dexter (the yappy beagle) starts barking up a storm, just going nuts. We look over, and Dannielle's first concern was that the dogs had gotten themselves caught in some as-yet undiscovered barbed wire. So, I head in that direction to see if they're stuck, or hurt. Dexter's still going crazy, and I hear Raven growling and see her whipping her head back and forth.

Then I heard the squeaking shriek.

Let me tell you, there is still enough city in me that I did not want to continue walking in that direction. But I saw enough to know that yes, our sweet, faithful, darling puppy-girl had just caught and killed a raccoon. To our knowledge, that's a first for her. When my wife and I walked over to see it, she casually picked up her trophy in her mouth and moved away from us, not wanting us to steal her prize, I suppose. Then, she decided to put it on display for the world to see. On our front porch.

I got her to stop long enough to get this picture, then she trotted to the front of the house and deposited her prize on the front porch, right next to the crate with the two rabbits inside. I'm hoping they aren't traumatized by the experience.

So, our puppy-girl has grown up and become a huntress. At least we know she's ready to protect the farm from the predators here on the island. But we also know that there is no way on God's green earth we're letting those chickens roam around free-range on this property, because she will be happy to practice her hunting skills on them. And they're not as tough to catch as a raccoon.

Chicken Math...

So, this was a weekend from Hell. I suppose the end result is worth it, but I'm learning that I'm way too old to be starting out as a farmer. Sure, it's all fun and games when you're pulling weeds and planting stuff, or feeding chickens and rabbits, but it's another thing entirely when your wife makes you actually build the chicken coop in the barn that you promised to do before the first chicken arrived on the farm.

Especially when the flock doubles in size from seven birds to fourteen in two days.

I didn't get any pictures of the work we did, but it was a lot over the past two days. We dug a two-foot-deep trench in the barn, twenty-four feet long by ten feet to make a long rectangle in the corner. We also put a set of posts in, with cross-boards buried at the bottom of the trench with hardware cloth attached to keep the predators from digging their way in. It would have to be a persistent fox to dig down two feet to get under and into the coop.

We've got the top of the coop framed as well, thanks to the help of the son of one of my friends and his own friends, who came over around lunch time and helped us frame out the rest of the coop and get the top prepped. We still need to put the roof on, the door, and the fence boards around the sides before the chickens can move in. We're going to use hardware cloth for the roof to keep the aerial predators out, as well as any adventurous raccoons.

Now, about the chicken math I mentioned... We had a strong suspicion that our four Rhode Island Red birds were all roosters. We asked the guy who sold them to us, and he never gave us a clear answer as to how to tell hens from roosters. This got my hackles up a bit; I know that there are ways to determine if a hatchling is a male or female, or at least make a reasonable guess. In fact, that's how we got our Cemani birds, by doing a quick and simple test to give us a reasonable guess as to whether or not they were hens or roosters. And we were right; we ended up with two hens and a rooster.

However, with the Rhodies, we weren't given any chance to test the birds; we weren't even allowed to pick out the birds. The farmer just handed us six chicks, with no input from us as to whether or not they were suitable. Something about 'bio-medical' procedures or something. One of them died the next morning, a second one got taken by a fox before we fixed a weak spot in the chicken tractor. The odds that, out of six randomly chosen birds, four survivors would be roosters? Slim at best. I'm convinced that he purposely gave us six roosters, even though we had requested hens for laying, not meat birds.

Anyway, our suspicions were confirmed by the young lady who sold us three hens on Friday. She told us how to tell the difference between roosters and hens, and after checking their feathers, we knew we had four roosters. Fortunately, we also got three hens, one of which is already providing us with eggs! We had our first egg this morning in pancake mix, so the investment is already paying off.

But here's where the chicken math comes in. My wife had originally told me we were getting two hens; she just casually remarked on the phone on Friday that we were picking up three instead. Like I wasn't going to notice. But then she also let me know that on Saturday, she was going to pick up four more birds for free!

Now, I'm not complaining about free birds (it's a bit overrated, but it's a decent song), but I can do math in my head. And a chicken tractor designed to hold six to eight chickens isn't going to do as well with eleven. So, Ashton and I build a quick little holding pen out of four pallets. It's not foolproof, or even chicken-proof, since a couple of the little buggers squeezed out and took off running. I did my best impression of Rocky Balboa in Rocky II, while my wife laughed at the sight of her husband futilely chasing two roosters around the vast yard in a vain attempt to corral them and put them in overnight pens (dog carriers from when we brought our puppies out here from Ontario).

So, our chicken population doubled in two days, and we spent the weekend building the coop. We've still got at least two full days of work to do on it; we need fence boards for the sides, hardware cloth for the roof, and the door needs to be attached.

One of the nice things of buying an old, semi-abandoned farm is that you find a whole lot of interesting and useful stuff that can be repurposed. There was a pile of old fencing left in the yard that is now being torn apart to use for the chicken coop. We also found some old poles that we're going to use for an outdoor fenced area for the chickens to roam, as well as for creating some lattice for the peas and tomato plants. There's plenty of scrap metal and wood around to work with, which saves us money as well as letting us get creative.

There's only one thing that worries me about the size of our chicken flock. We've got two Flemish rabbits that are going to move into their own little hutch next to the chickens before much longer. And when they see how many chickens there are next door... "Challenge accepted."

Whats Up, Doc?

 This farm thing is getting out of hand. First it's a few garden beds, then it's a mini-orchard, then it's chickens...and now, bunnies. Flemish rabbits, which grow to the side of a small Rottweiler. These are babies, Bugs and Daisy. I didn't name them. Daisy has the wider white fur around her eyes, so she's the one by the food dish at the top. They're in a temporary hutch until we get a proper one built for them. And yes, those black dots scattered about are genuine bunny poop, which they started dropping from the moment they were put in the box.

After our anniversary trip to Orwell Corners Historical Village, my wife and I have some ideas about how we're going to set up the barn for all these critters. The bunnies and chickens will have their own areas, and eventually we'll get some bigger animals (pigs and sheep) to join them. She also wants to get a horse and a couple of cows. Well, I'm fine with that...except I'm not shoveling out the stalls. That's what teenagers are for.

And we found out that our Rhode Island Red chickens, all four of them, are roosters. No hens. The Cemanis are fine; one rooster, two hens. There will be eggs soon enough. But the Reds? Nope. We're going to be buying a couple of laying hens next week, but the problem is going to be keeping the roosters from fighting over them. One rooster can manage six to eight hens; we've got four roosters to two hens. That's not a winning situation.

The best part about adding these animals to our hobby farm is the effect they are having on our youngest, Garrett. His autism is still in full swing, but he absolutely loves to visit with the chickens, and he was very happy when he got to help Mommy and big brother Tanner pick out the two bunnies at the farm to bring home. He kept talking about them all evening, which is great. He's engaging more and more, which is a very encouraging sign for his recovery.

So, it looks like this farm thing is getting serious, faster than we'd anticipated at first. The gardens are doing well, and we're going to have a decent harvest come fall. Not enough to keep the family fed for six months, but enough to encourage us to do more next year. So far, it's been a successful test; we'll see how it turns out in a couple of months.

Traveller Recap, Book 2, Starships

 Holy, it's been a week since I posted anything. Time flies when your life gets crazy. Still, you're here to read about Traveller, right? I did a post recapping the first book, Characters and Combat, so I'm going to do the same with the second book today. Bear in mind, this is the original version from 1977, not the revised book from 1981, or any of the later editions of Traveller.

So, the first thing I noticed about starships in \Traveller is that they are...small. You can recreate the Millennium Falcon with some work, but forget the Starship Enterprise, let alone a Star Destroyer. Capital ships are outside the scope of these rules. You could do an Enterprise shuttlecraft, but not the ship itself.

So, this lends well to a small-group style of play, such as a single ship's crew and their adventures across the galaxy. And, if you treat the Death Star as a planet, you can get away with recreating a good chunk of Star Wars, at least the original movie. I haven't gone looking, but I would be completely shocked to find that no one has recreated any of the iconic Star Wars ships for Traveller.

Math in Starships isn't an exact science; there's a good chunk of handwaving and WAGs to keep the game running smoothly. And while I'm sure there are people who would enjoy a game where distances and ranges were calculated with scientific accuracy, I doubt any of them live near me. Because I'm the type who does like that stuff. But most players don't.

I'm still creeped out by the passenger coffins (low passage berths) that come complete with a death lottery. That's just...wrong. Where the heck did they get this from, anyway? In fact, I'm not sure what's worse: The lottery itself, or the fact that there are always going to be people whose lives on any given world suck enough that they're willing to pay a full thousand credits for the privilege of participating in this lottery just to get off the stinking mudball.

The rules allow for a custom-built ship that weighs 5,000 tons. Unfortunately, the resulting ship is going to be as slow as a beached whale, with its top performance engine running at a maximum jump (or maneuverability) of 2. And while it's theoretically and legally permitted to put a Z-drive into a 1000-ton ship, the engine compartment isn't big enough to hold a jump drive that size and still have room for a power plant or a maneuvering drive. The math just doesn't work. Which means custom hulls will be the way to go.

The most dated piece of technology in the book is, of course, the computer. Now, I understand that in 1977 computer technology wasn't anything remotely close to what we have today. In fact, people back then couldn't even visualize what we would have today; Star Trek thought flip phones and tablets were a 23rd-century dream. But the computers of Traveller are just so antiquated compared to something as simple as a cell phone, or a iPod. Ten to twenty minutes to switch out programs? We've got hard drives today that can hold petabytes of data, but these computers can only hold a dozen or so programs in memory at a time.

As for starship combat, it is, of necessity, an abstract exercise for the most part. Every planet is going to have its unique facets, which will affect starship combat. I do like how the system takes planetary gravity into account, and if you're not careful where you aim the ship, you might end up caught in the gravity well and sucked in.

The last two sections of the rules are the ones that don't really fit in well with starship rules; they should have gone into the first book (especially the Experience rules). But, they are here. Drugs are the usual collection of pharmacological wonders that do weird things to bodies; some of them are psionic-related, whose impact will be seen in the last book.

Experience doesn't really give you much to work with; basically, the character you start with is the character you get for the rest of the game (until they die horribly, of course). It's very, very difficult to improve your skills in this game, to the point of it not being worth the effort. What you roll is what you get.

And that's a quick overview of the second book. I get the sense that, while the game obviously wasn't influenced by Star Wars (it came out shortly after the game was published), the movie certainly would have given players some very effective material to work with. Small ships, a mix of professions and abilities, from the hard-bitten, experienced Han Solo to the wise and weary Jedi Obi-Wan, to the young farm boy and princess just getting started on their journeys of adventure.

Twelve Years and Counting

Twelve years ago today, the most wonderful woman in the world consented, before God and family, to be my wife. It's been a road filled with ups and downs, some fantastic memories and some excruciating ones, and there have been times where we wondered if we would make it through another day. But we have, and we will until death do us part. It's a commitment we've taken seriously, and despite the rough patches, it really hasn't been that difficult to keep it. I am reminded of Jack Benny's words: We've been married this long, and while we have had some terrific arguments, none were ever so bad as to make us contemplate divorce. Murder, yes, but never divorce.

This was our first anniversary in our new home, and we decided to celebrate it in style. There is a place at the other end of the island, near Souris, where a famous TV chef owns an inn. No, it's not that famous chef. This is Chef Michael Smith, formerly of Chef at Home and a few other shows. My wife says she used to watch him back in the day. I'd never heard of him, but then, I was never into cooking shows.

Anyway, we booked this inn back in October of last year; we had to book it early, because it fills up in a hurry. In fact, this year they are booked solid from June to late September. The event we attended was called the Fire Feast, and it was a heck of a time. We arrived just after three o'clock and checked into our room. We were then chauffered to the main part of the inn down the road, where we got a tour of the farm that they have to grow pretty much everything they use.

The Oyster Hour was interesting; we met Chef Michael himself, and tried oysters for the first time. I wasn't a big fan of them, but I made an effort. Dannielle loved them, and we tried a few other goodies before the main event began at seven o'clock.

It was a six-course meal that kept us at the table until ten o'clock. It was all freshly made, using entirely organic ingredients, cooked on a charcoal fire using cast-iron pans. Dear Lord, it was an experience. And I now know what a food coma feels like.

We got chauffered back to the inn we were staying at, and in the morning breakfast was delivered. And it included some of last night's meal, notably the brisket sandwich. Oh, yes. Hot brisket with egg on a bun with an aioli sauce. It was incredible. We brought leftovers home for the boys, and on the way back home we stopped at a really neat place: Orwell Corner Historical Village, about fifteen minutes from Charlottetown. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it, since my phone was dead. But Dannielle got a bunch. It was, for those who are familiar, a lot like Upper Canada Village or Black Creek Pioneer Village, both in Ontario. It was raining all day, unfortunately, so we didn't get the full experience, but we did see the buildings, including the barn which has a few sets of animals in it: pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens. We got some ideas for our own barn to keep some animals, including a chicken coop that is fox-proof. Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways.

So, it was a great time, and I'm looking forward to going back to the Inn on Bay Fortune with the kids, and maybe family if they come to visit us out here. If not, they're missing out on a spectacular time, and one that every visitor to the island should experience.