Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Ok, it's a usual day here at the farm. Chores are done, animals are fed, and knitting is commencing while I start working on a few things. I've been working on extending my family tree a bit more. Whatever I had done was left pretty much in the air about 8 years ago. We had a years' subscription to Ancestry, but couldn't afford to keep it. Now, there are a bit more free sites that will help you without having to pay up $70 to see them. The two parts of my tree that were stuck were on my Mother's side. The Laws' side was stuck in Kentucky at the start of the 1900's. Now this might be fine for some, but come on! I've gotten one part of my tree back to the 1500's.  So I started searching, using the LDS website. Back when I started, the only persons in their database were ones 'sealed' to their faith. It's a part of their religion: If you become a Mormon, all your ancestors were 'sealed in the faith' -or baptised in Mormon. Many ...

We lost a goose last night. She got into the road and hit by a car. We noticed Penny dead in the road when we went to do night chores. Dave gathered her up and we put her in the yard so that the other geese could see she was dead. I have a theory that they accept the loss of a flock-mate better if they see the body. Penny was the gal that looked most like her Mom, Sissy. She will be missed. No amount of harassment and nothing short of a fricking 6' fence will keep those damned geese out of the road. They've got 30 acres of land behind that road ripe for the grazing, but they just wont.  stay.   out.      of.    the.   road. ~sigh~ I've been working on things to sell in my Etsy store: Things of interest I find in my trips to Goodwill, Vintage Patterns, Some Workbasket mags from the '50's. My decision right now is that attempting to get a job that would be able to work around the schedule here would be just as disastrous as before. EVEN THO...

That's George, Fred is behind him. They're doing well.  I've put up the enclosure again so they can be protected while outside. They have food, water and a bath in their enclosure. The rest of the flock is still harassing them. I don't know why, nor do I care. I just need time to be inside. Carrie is sitting on the last 2 eggs we have. I've incubated them until yesterday when B5 was internally pipping. B3 and B5 were fertile and have progressed well since I popped them in the incubator. By putting them under a broody goose, she gets to be Mom and I get my life back. This is just a nice photo of part of the flock. I can tell right away this is the flock we term "Ron's Flock" because Buddy is in it. Buddy, Ron, Sweet Pea and Gingi are all part of our original flock sent to us over 2 years ago. Everyone else in the group is Ron's offspring: Ronson, Sissysan, Penny, Nelly, Lumpy and Arthur. It was a cool morning after a good rain. We could u...

This is Nelly who has a baby gosling nestled under her wing with it's little head sticking out by her butt. Look closely and you'll see. I tucked this pipped egg under her wing 3 days ago and it hatched. Her eggs weren't viable. She's last years' gosling and they really don't get the hang of brooding and such until the 2nd year. We've got a few gals that are really good Moms; Luna is foster Mom to Elsa and she is just loving it. Molly is just a natural Mom who has always had good clutches of goslings. Nelly is slowly picking up what to do. The last 2 days we've had her segregated 98% of the time from the flock so that the gosling can get on it's feet, learn to eat and drink and learn who is Mom. Today they are out on the land checking out stuff. Nelly's got the jist of keeping the kid near her, but does not understand when the baby needs to have mom lay down so it can warm itself under her wing. She's very protective of her; attacked...

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, ...

No, they are just so cute! 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, ...

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...

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...

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. ...