Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

It is oh...-12° F here in Wisconsin right now...no wait...-11°. (in order to type a ° sign on your keyboard, hold key and type in 248 at the same time) The outside faucet froze last week and has yet to thaw. I mean, how could it? It's been below zero for what...a week now? Sissy's been in the house for 2 days now. She is not comfortable being around the rest of the flock constantly. It stresses her out. The only goose I know who is not similarly connected to the flock.   She gets to stressing too much, she worries the feathers on her chest. They get wet, then frozen, then she gets sores. So she's inside isolated from the others for at least another day. Dealing with the cold is just draining on my energies. There's nothing for it, but dayum! I'd like it to stay warm for a while. Yesterday, I had to do both morning and night chores plus dig out my car from the end of the driveway. Alex spun the car in the ditch last Friday on the way home from work. Fortun...

The gathering of the feathers was done over the course of 3 months. Every Saturday, my husband killed 2 more ducks and I plucked the feathers and down, separating the two. The cleaning, sorting and filling of the comforter was done in one day. just a bit of clingy down As I mixed the down with the feathers in the big plastic tub. I tipped the big brown grocery bag with the down over the tub and shook until most of them were in the tub.  Now...hold your breath, or breathe to the side. DON'T breathe into the tub or you'll look like a tar&feather victim. Using the two bread bags was helpful. After mixing the down and feathers together like folding eggs into an Angel Food Cake batter, I stuffed the bread bags about 3/4 full. And I do mean STUFF.  Then, twisting the top of the bag, I stuffed it into the channel I had sewn into the comforter. bag of down + feathers  For the comforter itself, I am using 120" muslin purchased from the Fabric Store. Normally, th...

For those of you who have no compulsion to read about how to create your own down comforters, I suggest reading something else for a week. I'm starting off from the butchering of ducks to the sewing of these comforters. This does go into some issues that some people might find offensive. For others; I've not read a single blog on how to do this. I've read 1/2 page 'How To' that doesn't even get into how much feathers to use. This will be the guide on how to turn duck feathers into a warm and comfortable blanket that will give you years of use. I prefer to utilize as much as I can from our flock. They give their lives so we can eat and be warm. I figure it is the best way to honor their sacrifice. How to Create a Feather Comforter from Your Own Feathers Over the course of 3 months, Dave and I have processed 26 ducks that were hatched specifically for meat + feathers. All of them were Pekins, like the two shown here. They were hatched in April, brooded i...