Saturday Sprinkles

When I came home from my final Sexual Dysfunction class, Scarlett was perched in the motorcycle shed watching the boys work on the Suzuki. Life's a little surreal here every day and sometimes, really surreal. Doodle met me at the door with his monster paw, a black clawed monster slipper he stole out of the closet, and followed me around the house until I took it from him, admired it and gave it back. He did his little happy dance as he sauntered off to drop the wet, chewed thing on Flash's napping head. Such is life around here.

It's 61F here, overcast and sprinkling this evening. Libby is curled up on my left shoulder, the dogs are napping and the guys are tucking in after a hard day's labor in the shed.

I'm making Hashbrown Casserole for breakfast tomorrow, so the house smells wonderful with yummy, sticky goodness. The guys are pretending to consider heading out again to work on the bike, I'm pretending to believe them. Hashbrown Casserole morally requires them to do so, karmicly. Just saying.

No news on Duckhatch 2010 other than to note that I keep switching out the name. Sorry. Brain dead from graduate school and all that.

I have at least three weeks to rest on my laurels before I need to get back to work. Meanwhile, I intend to read lots of guilty pleasure books, do a bit of writing on my own and even spend some time with friends on the mainland.

Hope your day is as peaceful as ours here.

Duckling Watch 2010 - we has babies!

Rincewind, our Khaki Campbell/Silver Swede female has successfully hatched a few of her eggs. Roughly estimating 1/2 have hatched, so 3 of 6. I can't really disturb her to the point of getting a good view, so no pictures, sorry!

I have two brooders ready to go, one with room for mom, one without. All I need do is flip the heat lamps on. I have three more brooders I can set up for the mothers and ducklings, though one of them is purely in case of an emergency. We'll be putting out food for the little ones tomorrow, the egg will provide three days worth of food for them so we have some time. Water, however, is the most immediate need. Given the rain, this may be somewhat troublesome and inconvenient for all involved.

Our other nesting ladies:

Babs, our Black Swede, has yet to hatch any of her eggs. She's been a very dedicated mother, so I have high expectations of her ability to mother. (Babs is the duckling on the left in my icon)

The 3 Khaki Campbell ladies (Madame, Lucy and Penny) who are sharing a large clutch together are roughly a week or two behind Babs. No peeps yet. Should these three begin hatching, we'll put them in the new section of the shed so there's room for them all.

Bianca, our very protective Khaki Campbell, who laid her nest next to the back fence is doing great. I think I may have heard a few peeps, but she's making little peeping sounds to herself, so the jury is still out. We may have missed her nest in the rounds, we found it just after we found the trio of KCs.

Luca, our Runner, is still sitting on her nest which we believe was started several weeks later than the others.