Last night when I got home from work there was a message on the answering machine from a post office guy in Roanoke. “Um, we have some, um…ducklings? here for you. If you want to pick them up here instead of waiting for them to get to your post office, come on by!” In the background we could hear our little babies cheeping for us. Too bad we didn’t get the message until after the post office closed!

We’d prepped the brooder the night before, so we were all ready for them. All that was left to do was wait until morning when the ducklings would arrive at our local post office and we could get them!

At around 6:45am, the phone rang. It was Pat, our rural letter carrier!

“Your ducklings are here!” she said with a smile in her voice (who can resist the charm of baby animals??)

“YAY!!!!!!!!!!!”

“We open at 7:30.”

“YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We’ll be there!!”

I hung up the phone, ran downstairs, leapt onto the bed, and started hopping up and down and cheering, “THE DUCKS ARE HERE!!!” Andy was still asleep…and didn’t seem to quite be feeling the joy. (I have to add here that my acrobatics really sound more impressive than they were since the bed is a mattress on the floor.)

“WAKE UP WAKE UP! THE DUCKS ARE HERE!!”

“mfflemffle”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAKE UP!!!!” (bounce hop bounce)

“mffffflesnarflemrfffle”

Andy finally woke up, and we headed out the door. Alas, we got to the post office 5 minutes early, and it wasn’t open yet. We stared forlornly in the front window, but if anyone was in there they didn’t care. Instead of loitering like silly city folk, we took a walk down a side street and listened to cows bellowing and saw some of that groovy butterfly weed plant from the Booker T. Washington monument. On our way back, we saw the post office guy putting up the flag (he kept letting it touch the ground!!!). We followed the post office guy into the post office. He seemed grumpy. Did he not know our ducks were there?!?! He unlocked the door and turned on the light and pulled up the little shade hanging down at the counter and (without smiling or saying hello or anything!) shuffled past us and went back around behind the counter.

“can i help you?”

“We’re here for our DUCKS!” (bounce bounce)

He turned around and wandered off. I saw a lady in the background (was it Pat? I dunno!) smiling. _She_ knew about the ducks! The post office guy shuffled back over to the counter, set down a box of chirps, scanned it with some top secret post office gizmo, and pushed the box across the counter to us.

“YAY!!!”

He sort of stared at us.

“Um, can we borrow some scissors to open it to make sure everyone is okay?” (That’s what you’re supposed to do…look at in them in front of the post office person. If the ducks aren’t okay, the post office person files the report for you.)

Post office guy sighed and turned around and got scissors and cut the plastic straps holding the box closed. I lifted the lid and there they were….

Seven (we got a bonus one) teeny, fuzzy, peeping blobs of ultimate cute!

We drove home. Me behind the steering wheel; Andy with the box of ducks on his lap. He peered in at them…

“Aren’t they supposed to be white?”

“Um, they are called _Khaki_ Campbells.”

“Oh. … … Are their eggs white?”

“Maybe!”

“Can I pet them?”

“I’m not sure. You should probably not bug them too much.”

He looked sort of sad, “Oh. Okay.” And he peered at them through the holes in the box…announcing each time one stuck her beak out….holding the box in the air to keep it level when we went around curves.

Before I even got out of the truck Andy was halfway up the hill to the garage where the brooder is. We put the box down in the middle of the brooder and took off the lid and stared at the ducks. I think we both expected them to hop out of the box…but they are teeny ducks not frogs or rabbits. We each started scooping up birds and setting them down gently in the straw.

I’d read somewhere you should put some shallow dishes of water in the brooder when the ducklings first arrive to make sure they can reach the water. I also read you should put little bits of green food in the water for them. Maybe the dishes weren’t shallow enough because instead of drinking, snacking ducklings, we got this:

How can you beat that? (happy sigh)

We watched the ducklings eat and drink and play and run around. Andy (responding to my constant, “Are they warm enough????”) adjusted the heating lamp a few times and put up a cardboard baffle around the exterior (to keep out drafts (and also to keep in ducks when they get bigger)). I tossed baby duck kibble into their water. Good stuff.

Finally, I had to go to work. I wanted to grab a blanket and crash on the floor right next to them and watch them all day, but no. (sad sigh) Andy’s checking on them and making sure they are warm enough and have enough food floating in their water and is sending me updates. Here’s one more picture for you and for me:

Andy and I were both very sad when we discovered our bees died early this spring. We’d hoped to bring them to the new place, but a hot/cold snap zapped them. Alas, by the time we discovered our hive was dead, it was too late to get new bees. (You’re pretty much outta luck if you don’t order by Christmas.)

Thursday Andy found an ad for an auction…where they were selling two hives of bees! YAY!

The auction started at 10, but we showed up at 9 to check things out (and to make sure we wouldn’t be late if we got lost, which, remarkably, we didn’t). We trekked down to the hives, which were down a dirt road and up on a hill. See them up there?

We went up to check the bees out, and I decided I’d be Super Bee Woman and open one of the hives to check things inside. The bees weren’t pleased and decided to go for a ride on my head. (But how did they get past the veil, you ask? Um. Yeah. Wasn’t wearing the veil.) At one point, a bee was crawling up and around behind my left ear. Bzzzzzzzz. Two got stuck in my hair, but Andy got those out without any deaths of bees or stings of Cabols…alas, one bee decided to give up her life on my chin.

I flicked the stinger out with my fingernail. (I thought about asking Andy to help with that, but I do learn from my mistakes.) Good thing we had some extra time to get some Benadryl from a nearby gas station. I popped two and except for a little tenderness and a quarter-sized red spot, I’m okay so far.

By the time we got back from the drug quest, things had started hopping at the auction. Look at all those people!

The bees didn’t come up for bids until about noon. We got both hives!

Alas, we couldn’t take them home then because it was the middle of the day and the bees were all out getting food. We stuck around at the auction for a bit longer and then went exploring. We stopped at the Booker T. Washington monument / park to pass some time. It’s a neat place to hike about, and they had two fuzzy pigs, some cranky geese, and a small flock of sheep. There was a field with these tall flowery-weed-looking things in it…and the flowers were COVERED with butterflies and bees. I want some of those plants!

After lunch, a nap, and a bit more driving around, we went back and got the bees. It wasn’t fun. There were a lot of mad bees. Bees. Bees. Everywhere bees! But we got them in the truck and wedged in and headed home. I could see the strays in the back of the truck trying to get out. It was both unnerving and mesmerizing. Bzzzzzzzz.

The bees are now in our yard down by the barn and garden. We need to get some stands built for them, and we really need to put some supers on. We’ll get to that later….for now it’s just really nice to have bees again.

Look! We got a new kitty!

Nah…not really. He just dropped by to poop in our yard. And to play with Andy. Andy and the cat have played before. Andy warned me that kitty likes to be very cute and cuddly looking, and then when you try to pet him, he flips out and attacks. So we’re standing there working on the duck tractor and the neighbor cat wanders up, flops on the ground, and begins rolling around on his back, mewing and showing his tummy.

“Awww…he’s so cute! He wants me to pet his tummy!” Andy says gleefully.

Do I even need to say what happened next? At least no blood was shed…though, Andy did squeal in a very girlie way.

Two more pictures…because pictures are fun. First, the iris rooty thing my mom gave me last year bloomed!!

And finally, I made hay! It’s lawn hay! This weekend I raked up all the grass Andy had mowed in our “front yard.” A lot of ended up mulching the garden, but I stuffed some in these boxes to use for bedding for when we get our ducklings. Hopefully it doesn’t burst into flame.

Loafkeeper Farm is proud to present to you the first two official farm critters…

Pumpernickel…

…and Sourdough (she’s in there somewhere)!

Here’s what the folks at Green Fence Farm have to say about these two fuzzy girls:

Both are daughters of our herd ram, Zeus, a powerful herd ram with great fleece. [Pumpernickel] is solid black, born 5/7, daughter of LRB-030P, a black ewe with lovely fleece. She twinned easily, has lots of milk, and is a great mother. Your lamb is grandaughter to our leader ewe, and that line gives us the best wool we have — soft and plentiful.

[Sourdough] is a solid white daughter of TNY-937P, born 5/18. Her mother is an easy going, fabulous mom. She has a gorgeous white coat of ringlets already and is growing like a weed.

We’ll be bringing them home at the end of summer. If you have some free time, we could use some help getting the barn fixed up and the fencing set!

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been gazing longingly at the huge, empty fields I drive by each day. Some of the fields I see have cattle grazing. One field had ducks grazing (…and may still have ducks grazing, but the grass has grown into an ocean that would engulf teeny duck bodies). A lot of the fields, though, are empty.

As I drive by these empty fields day after day, I think to myself: “If one of those huge, empty fields were mine, I would fill it with furry sheep, milky goats, and guarding llamas! It’s not fair that someone else should own these fields and not use them!” I then pout a bit and start to scheme on how we can convince our neighbors to sell us a bit of their unused land.

The thing is…those fields _aren’t_ empty.

They are (or were until recently) extremely full.

About a week ago, I noticed that the grasses in many of these empty fields had been cut and turned into long, drying windrows of sunny green*.

Those fields are hay fields.

My drives past these fields during the last week have been like watching slow-motion animated flip cards. One day I’d drive by the fields full of tall, dark green grass…the next day the grass was cut and drying….a couple of days later the grass was hay–rolled or stacked into bales…then finally the bales were gone and the fields bare. I never see any farmers, and the strange multi-pronged machinery is always silent when I pass, so it seems to me that this change happens on its own.

Now when I pass these fields, my lust for the seemingly empty fields is replaced by drooling over the luscious, fresh hay. “Oh, how I wish I had some of that hay! Why, if that hay was mine, I’d stack it up in my barn to feed furry sheep, milky goats, and guarding llamas when winter comes!” Mmmmmm…hay.

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*Slightly poetic aside: I love drying-hay green. There are tons of greens around here, but drying-hay green is my favorite. In reality, the sun is sucking up the moisture from the grass, but it seems to me, instead, that the grass sucks up the sun.