Tails and Tidings: Weirdos Welcome

Tres! Trois! Something in German!

Today marks the first day of Backyard University's third year online, and rest assured, we are only taking things up a notch.

You see, when one decides to homeoschool their young, one may come to depend heavily on the internet. For everything. TED talks, Oregon Department of Education, Kid President, All The Blogs, Pinterest, and YouTube*

*because how else to convince your Hungarian husband, and young children that Milli Vanilli was actually a thing?

So, there is a tendency to want to give back, so to speak. To make the sort of resource one might rely on if one were someone else.  To capture up some of our crazy with words that can be understood, and even used, to recreate mushroom logs, pumpkin bread pudding, a week-long family film fest; it feels like the natural thing to do after being enriched by the bountiful creativity and work of others.

Part of the shenanigans needing to be documented was the keeping of our backyard beasts. The BU started out with a resident pig and goat frolicking, napping, munching, and sadly, dying. So, chickens filled the land and we resigned ourselves to waiting until we can have a big farm before welcoming more off-beat critters.


Until I got a call from the local shelter, telling me they are in need of a home for an animal that had recently come into their care. I have a hard time saying no to such calls, especially when I heard what sort of creature they needed to place.

Meet Justine! She came to this rainy land all the way from Tasmania, as an exotic pet of a wealthy local. She's young, lays eggs, and is comical-looking. Plus, being female means her ankle spurs aren't venom-filled! So having her as part of our menagerie seems only natural. And, seeing as how the platypus is an endangered species, I am checking petfinder every day, to find her a boyfriend, so that we might help bring the global platypus count back where it should be.

In order to accommodate what may be an indefinite number of water-loving mammals, we are putting in a pond; a platypus pond, which will hopefully be overrun with bottom-feeding, splashing little oddities for us to name and cuddle. So, watch for more posts on Justine the platypus, a lovely bizarre animal once thought to be a HOAX, as she wiggles her way into our hearts.