A picture of our yard from this evening – it almost looks like we actually bother to mow it regularly n stuff!
Monthly Archives: June 2006
First Sock
Posted onI was having a not-so-great time at work this morning, so as lunchtime approached I decided to go on an adventure. I went yarn store hunting.
I don’t need any more yarn, and I really shouldn’t be spending money on yarn right now, but I was drawn to the yarn. It was calling to me like a rice krispie treat. When I walked in the store, I knew I’d made the right choice to forego my normal noontime routine. Shelves of fuzzy goodness surrounded me. Walking into a yarn store is like walking into a store full of words. Little bits just waiting for me to turn them into something fun/pretty/useful.
There were two other women in the store: the yarn store person and a customer — an older woman who was looking to spend a gift certificate. She was even more of a newbie to knitting than I am, and it made me feel good. Yarns stores for newbies are probably as intimidating as a pencil store would be to new writers. Can you imagine going into a store and having the sales person invite you to sit down and try out the store’s new pencil by working on a story she has already in progress? The pressure to make sure your words aren’t sloppy….not too slanty, not too curly or flat. All the while the pencil pro is watching you… Aie!
Yarn Store Person was very nice, though, and hey…she’s getting paid to knit and to help other people knit, and she can always unravel the stiches we newbies have made.
By the time I left the yarn store (half an hour after my lunch break was over…oops), I had in my posession everything I need to make my first pair of socks. The nice Yarn Store Person even helped me get started. She would have showed me more neat things if not for that darn pesky work thing.
Like water off a duck’s back
Posted onThis afternoon I was sitting on the porch watching sheets of rain come down (while at the same time incredibly sunny), and I glanced over at the duck tractor. Today it seems the ducks have learned that they can get out of the rain if they sit under the little roof I put up for them. But then one duck would run out into the rain, and alllll the other ducks would follow, they’d make a big circle and realize they are getting wet, so they would runnnnnnnn back under the shelter. After waiting 30 seconds, this would repeat. Again, and again, and again…
First word!
Posted onAt least one of our ducklings has started to quack! It’s not a well-defined quack…more like a baby-talk quack…but it was quacking nonetheless!
Water
Posted onI took advantage of a pause between storms this afternoon and took some pictures of the water in our brook, now that it’s no longer dry as a bone:
Brook
Reflections
Two weeks
Posted onOur little quackers are now two weeks old, so we took them outside to play in the almost-finished (darn rain) tractor recently. Look how big they are getting!
Ducks
We also filled up their pool with water so they could swim around. Only two could seem to figure it out, however.
Ducks in pool
Look, she’s duck shaped now instead of baby shaped!
Tall duck
Everybody poops
Posted onDo you know that spiders poop? It’s true! I was taking a picture of this neat green spider on the side of the truck this morning, and I was so scary looking (especially if you see eight of me, I bet), that it pooped right in front of me!
Green spider
Bunnies n stuff
Posted onBecause someone requested more pictures of bunnies (n stuff)…
Carla
Hop
Wibble
Fancy Frock
Posted onMs. Dollie has a new, fancy frock. She was very excited about showing everyone the dress and had a hard time deciding where to pose. In the end, she decided that since she’s a country girl at heart, she’d like to have a little bit of country as a backdrop.
A kind soul, Ms. Dollie reassured me that she did not mind at all the novice stiching on the dress. She did, however, recommend that I not quit my day job to become a seamstress.
Here’s another shot that shows the dress a bit more.
I’m having a lot of fun working on Ms. Dollie, and I’m really going to miss her when she heads off to her new life in Europe. I may just have to make her a sister or brother.
Swimmin’ time
Posted onThe ducks are now nine days old. In celebration of this occasion, they got to go outside and play. They have outgrown their mailing box, but luckily we still have moving boxes. Not only are the ducks bigger, but they are smarter and faster and more difficult to catch to put in the box to take outside. The first duckling in the box and the last one left outside the box both peep extremely sadly…confused and frightened at suddenly being all alone. Once they are reunited with their sisters, they stop the sad peeping instantly. Andy decided to start picking up the ducks more often to try and get them more used to being handled.
Since ducks don’t eat birthday cake, I decided to give them just a cake pan.
Yes..that is a cake pan we regularly use. If you visit us and have cake or brownies, you may very well be eating something cooked in a pan that ducklings played in. At one point, two of the girls were practicing their Olympic synchronized swimming routine.
When the ducklings were done with their birthday swim, they hopped out of the pan and wiggled and shook like dogs to get some of the water off. They wiggled their little tails and flapped their little wings and shimmied and jigged. Then back into their brooder for a nap.