Our 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

I finally located the battery charger for my camera, so I decided to take some pictures of things around the house. I’m not real familiar with flowers, so I’m just guessing what they are. The snakeskin I fished out of the pond – the snake was there as well, but I didn’t try to fish it out.
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I have come to really enjoy using the scythe. Some people knit to relax, some drink, but I’ve found that decapitating large swathes of grass with a big razor-sharp blade is the thing for me. And while it is tiring after an hour or two, it’s not exhausting, which surprises me – but I suppose if I am mowing things properly, the tool is doing most of the work, not me.

There is hardly any water coming down our little brook into the pond, the result being that the pond is probably 1.5-2 feet lower than it should be. Over the weekend, I cut down all the weeds infesting the channel it runs down, and dug a little trench to encourage the water to go to the pond. It now does so, but at a trickle. Then again, a trickle is pretty much all that comes out of the pipe that goes under the driveway. there is a larger pipe that goes under the driveway, but the water on the other side cannot be encouraged to enter it (I’ve tried). Perhaps it is just for ‘heavy water flow’, and the smaller pipe that stuff comes through right now is just a french drain that goes under it.

The end result is, I don’t like it, since the water comes into the ditch on the other side of the driveway much faster than it comes out our side – my believe is right now, a lot of it is disappearing into the ground. I also notice the ground on the pond side of the driveway is quite soft – I’m waiting now for the driveway to slowing sink and crush the pipes that go under it. Maybe when Cabol’s dad comes to visit we can get some shovels and start diggin’ up the driveway until we hit the pipes, and put in some proper draining so the brook fills the pond and then continues on to yards unknown through the (now dry) riverbed on the other side of the pond!

Today I whipped out the scythe and started to go to work on the front yard. I seemed to do better once I got the hang of honing the blade regularly as I worked. And there I was, really getting into the swing (haha) of things when…the glue on the handle decided it did not want to work anymore. Now I need to search the entire house for where I put a 2 fl oz bottle of Gorilla Glue.

Today I went out and planted the tomatoes, peppers, and various herbs that have been sitting in their little flats on the back porch. Unfortunately the garden plot is 1/4 of the way down the hill, and there is no water down there. We need to get water run down there.

Most of the garden plot seems to be a home for ants, both little black ones and red ones. I think we came to an understanding, however, where if they did not bite me then I would not return with something nasty (like an anteater) to eat them all.