Molly hatched out 6 babies day before yesterday. Like Sissy, she's a first-time Mom and doing a LOT of hissing. A leaf blows by too close to her and she hisses. Yesterday was the first time the kids got to go outside. At first, all the goose girls came up to her nest to see the wee little ones. Mary is very interested in those girls. She'll make a great Mom next year, I think.
We've compared these goslings to Sissy's since these will be a Toulouse/African cross. Well, we were not sure until they hatched. If Daddy was Buddy, they'd be straight Toulouse. The kids would have a grayish beak. These are all black beaks but the chicks themselves are more yellow than Sissy's which are straight Africans. I've seen pics of the Toulouse/African cross: Big bodies, with that tuft-y neck, dark streak down the back with brown instead of gray coloration. Hey, we're diverse here.
Sissy, here in the front of the group, has lost all her primary feathers. It's like following a kid to the bath: I pick up feathers wherever she goes. There's a few people out there that are interested in buying the feathers. One lady is making her own arrows, another is using them to play her dulcimer.
Sissy's also our one-eyed gal. This shows her bad eye pretty well. It's malformed. I see an eyeball in there, but it's not well-placed nor is the socket formed correctly. Probably a problem that happened in the egg. She can see changes in light with it, and the other eye is sharp. She's got depth-of-field issues, but it does not keep her from being queen of the flock.
Knitting-wise: I've worked more on my 3rd Deephaven cowl. The color is a gray blue that I find very appealing. It's actually a Blue-Sky Alpaca chunky yarn I've respun into a sock weight yarn. I'm working out the gauge to make a sweater using this pattern. I've snagged 10 skeins of alpaca mix yarn from Ebay that is close to the same color as this yarn. It will make a nice sweater for me.
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