Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Newer laptop, forgive me if I scream a few times. I get random glitches when I type for too long. So we've been incubating eggs for a while now and this is the first year that I've had a ton of issues with it. Two sets of eggs  have died within the shell before I could even sneak them under a mama goose. Then there was the chicken, who would not stop being broody, so we stuck a duck egg under her.  So now we have Dobby the duck with a hen as it's mom. It's working out fine right now, even though the Dobby is almost as big as his/her mom and s/he's only 3 weeks old. We honestly didn't think she'd sit long enough to hatch a baby duck. That's at least a week more brooding time than a chicken. But she did and the only assistance we gave her was to move her nest down to the lower level when the duck was hatched so it could get out easily. They wander around and I make sure there are puddles for the little one to drink and wash from. Now the duck is ...

So sometime in the last month, I hurt my elbow/bicep/lower arm area in my left arm.  Probably toting those stupid cans of water out to the animals. Writing notes makes it hurt, reaching out and grabbing my ipad makes it hurt, any effort to bear weight on it makes it hurt. So I sit here with a heating pad wrapped around my left elbow to see if I can get relief. So far............meh The weather has turned warmer...meaning it's now over 10°F instead of under.  Our eldest pair of mating geese have left the flock and set up house in the garage next to the dead van.  Ron and Sissy were in there one night as I was getting everyone ready for bed. Both honked and honked and would not move. OK, fine. You get to stay in the garage. A heated bucket of water, a tub full of food and some cushy straw and they're all happy. Yep, our old van bit the dust during that last cold snap. We found a Jeep Cherokee to replace it. Old, loud and full of electrical issues, but hey...it runs a...

So far, the coldest winter on record here in WI, officially.  Each winter there is one article of clothing that I grow sick and tired of wearing. This year, that would be my full-length powder blue goose down coat. Yeah, it's a great coat. It's warm. But if I have to endure that thing for another month, I'm going to scream. About a year ago I purchased some 10 skeins of blue alpaca yarn off of eBay. Last weekend it finally told me what it wanted to be. It's a farose shawl in cables. The pattern is entirely made up in my head. Right now I'm going to get down to a rant, so plug your ears. I'm sitting here with my ipad on my laptop, with photos in my ipad that refuse to be shared with my laptop. I mean, it's on the same flipping network, it's supposed  to be sharing on the icloud but no.  I went to 3 different websites, including Flickr to put this *ONE* photo on so I could share it with my blog. None of the sites would allow sharing with blogger, ...

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...

Calculus is going decently.  I sit in the back of the class next to a young man who has had the pleasure of being in two classes with me. He reminds me much of my son, Alex but with ambition. So, Alex got discharged from the Marines for failing to meet their physical criteria.  Right now he's thinking that he'll spend 2 years copping a squat on my couch while going to community college.  Meh.  I'm still ticked about that, but apparently my prayers and my wishes will never be taken into play with his life. That's the way it goes, I guess. (I'd credit the photo, but I'm pretty sure it's from a meme generator.) Poultry is well, except for Daisy the Duck who got into a fight with like 1/2 the flock and was injured. Now there's a nice, melodic story about picking maggots out of wounds that I could share, but why? It's bad enough that I got to DO it. Suffice it to say she's healed from her external wounds, but will need another month conval...

It's been an odd Summer weather-wise.  Life-wise, pretty much the same. we've learned a few new things this summer: Butchering ducks is not as easy as it should be. We've done 8 and it's complicated. It requires a duck with it's adult feathers in and a cool day, not a hot day.  There's a technique using wax to strip off pinfeathers that works well..........when it's not hot outside. Another 20 to go.... Percy has found his dude-ness.  He's hollering after he shags a girl. EVERY girl. It was cute the first 10 times. Now I walk out and say, "Percy, no one needs to know every time you shag a girl. You're not THAT good at it!" We had one rooster that was terrorizing our flock of ducks. We have 3 roosters, so we had to be sure it was this  rooster that was the offender. We put a band on his leg and observed him. Sure enough, it was that rooster. He was very tasty in with peanut sauce and rice. There really isn't a need for m...

Lately, Donna duck has taken to going into the slip drag that is part of my front flower bed.  In front of her is a lavender bush. It must smell nice in that slip drag.  The two boys, Vito and Tony lay nearby and wait for her. Little did I know until 2 days later that Donna was so enamored with her new spot that she was laying eggs in there. 

Ducks and geese do this thing after they've been resting for a while.  They stand up, extend one wing and then lift the corresponding leg.  It's a ballet move if I've ever saw one!   

Yes, I named the place Gale Oaks farm.  We've got 3 old oaks in the back yard.  Each morning at about 10am, the wind comes up out of the west and over the hill to our house. Hence the name: Gale Oaks. You'd think with 50 animals that are all poultry of some sort it would be one big, happy flock. Oh no....too much jockeying for leadership for that! So let's all go through the flocks: First flock is what I call "Sissy's Posse."  It consists, of Sissy who is in back in the middle, her 5 babies, her mate, Ron (2nd big goose to the left) and the Uncles, Buddy, Ginger, and Sweet Pea.  Sissy is hands-down the leader of this flock. I'm impressed by the amount of parenting that the boys do.  For much of the day, Daddy and the Uncles take care of the babies. Sissy just walks along with them.  Oh she keeps an eye on her babies and they stay close by her, but She'll leave discipline to the boys.  They nudge the babies around with their beaks. Now that the b...

I wake up every morning and get out between 5 or 6 every morning to 'release the hounds'.  This is the shot of the back 40 this morning as Sissy and her Posse were out grazing. We put the 2 goslings I hatched in the incubator with her 3 babies yesterday afternoon.  I had them out with the ducklings in the pen, but the ducks were beating them up.  So I thought to put them with their own brothers and sisters.  Sissy looked at them, said, "Honk" and led them all away. I guess the adoption is complete then! I've made these little pockets out of wool roving that was on sale as yarn for $1.00 at the fabric store.  When baby ducklings first hatch, they like to burrow under stuff to make them feel like they are under mama's wing. I cannot walk around with baby ducks under my arm, so I invented these little pockets.  In the nursery, I put the pocket on it's side and the ducklings snuggle inside and sleep. It's funny to see naught but a little yello...

Sissy's babies hatched! She's got 3 Uncles and one Daddy who are her Nannies.  It's hilarious to see them all looking after these 3 little ones.  They are little fluff balls that waddle behind Mama where ever she goes.  As soon as I can, I will get a pic of the babies on her back.  It's cute. At times they are under her wing, but if they are sufficiently warm, they just nap on her back. There's still a lot of hissing and charging from the Uncles, but Daddy has calmed down a lot. Sissy's got them out for a tour of the lilac bush in the picture. This is Molly on her nest. She got a late start. After spending most of the spring running away from the guys, she finally decided to let them near her...which led to mating.  She's got 11 eggs under her.  Dave's been building nests to see what is the optimum dimensions for them.  This one is 3' square by about 8" high.  The concrete block in front helps her get in an out better. We're revam...

Does anyone else have this issue with knitting...that when you finish one *big* project, you get all scatter-brained and start about a dozen small projects because you can't get it together mentally for a big one? It's been a month or two since finishing both Blessed Days shawls, and I can't seem to focus knitting wise for more than an hour or so.  Nothing has captured my attention long enough to keep at it. I've got two throws, one baby sweater, two hats and a sock on the needles. None of which is close to being done and I'll bet at least 1/2 of them will be frogged.  I do that, when I notice that I am too scattered, I will frog the projects that I come across. Of course, I should give myself a break; school has just gotten done, I've hatched out 18 ducks in the last 2 weeks and have played goose mama to 6 new girls. That's a lot on my plate! OH! I should tell you that Molly, our mail-order bride has started laying eggs.  Buddy's not her mate, ...

Yeah, me too.  Then I said to my husband, "We should get chickens and raise them." Famous last words. Yes, there are birds in that incubator, but you have to look REAL close. Our hatching survival rate for ducks this year has been dismal: 20%. So I threw out the rule book and decided to assist the buggers in hatching.  We had 20 eggs with 4/19 written in pencil  on them.  Of that 20: 3 were infertile, 2 died in the egg, one died after 2 days of life (aspirated yolk, he was looking good for a while) and that one top left - who is still amazingly alive. I thought he was dead. I'm not kidding, I SWEAR TO GOD I thought he was dead. I massaged him, poked him a bit in the shell to see any movement: None. Of course, I was poking and massaging the wrong end of him. You see, 3 of my eggs were presenting backwards; a sort of breech birth.  It's nerve-wracking not seeing that cute beak where it should be.  And the fact that it's turned 180 degrees m...

I can smell grass! It smells lovely. So here's the count of animals  here: 7 adult geese 4 adult ducks 3 roosters, 4 hens 6 female goslings 3 ducklings of indeterminate gender 6 bantam chicks of indeterminate gender 28 duck eggs incubating 3 bantam eggs incubating 18 eggs on Sissy the goose's nest. 3 human adults 3 cats who do absolutely nothing but eat food. A duckling explaining life to Dave. Isn't he/she adorable???? They've lost much of their yellow fuzz and are replacing it with white down.  After that come the feathers.  They are liking it outside and have been introduced to the flock.  The boys are very interested in the girls. As Mama Goose, I must remind them to keep their distance. In order to help keep the two flocks apart, I made a partition of sorts from a sheet torn into strips with narrow strips of fabric sewn at the corners with enough room to stick bamboo garden stakes through. You'll see it the background of the top photo. ...

Note: Ducklings will eat box elder bugs.  Apparently they do not know better.. We are over run with box elder bugs but not so much with ducks.  Out of the 5 expected, we have 2 living that hatched.  And wow, one of them had a journey! Duckling #2 pipped wrong.  Ok; Pipping: Using their beak to make a hole in their shell to let in air.  Once that is done, then they rotate in their shell and start 'zipping' or opening the top of the shell counter-clockwise.   This little one pipped upside down and way too early.  So on Friday I started to help out but it was entirely too early to even try.  The membranes of eggs are lined with blood vessels.  As they mature out of their egg, these vessels dry up and the blood enters the ducklings through their yolk attached to their umbilical. Now normally, the pipping is done close to hatching.  This ducky spent 3 days with his foot sticking out over his head in this opening of his shell. ...