None Whatsoever

So all week I have been reading posts on Facebook about people going to their local feed stores for feed and leaving with ducklings. Every post made me chuckle. I was joking all week to Dwayne about needing feed. At the time we didn't need duck feed but we did need dog food. :) The store that we buy our dog food from happened to be stocked with little critters. We didn't know this until we walked in and heard the cheeping and peeping.

Uh oh.

I knew we were done as soon as we heard the peeps.

We have no willpower against ducklings.

None whatsoever.

Seriously, what duck owner can resist this bin full of cute little fuzzy, peeping ducklings?

Certainly not us.

Dwayne looked at me with a goofy grin and told me to do "whatever seemed right to me" and

left for another part of the store.

I mean the man disappeared. I briefly looked for him but couldn't find him.

He left me standing there with two boys begging me to get some ducklings.

Yes, the almost 13 year old and almost 16 year old were literally begging.

What was I supposed to do? No was not an option at this point.

I truly think this was Dwayne's plan all along.

His brilliant idea had me as the fall guy for buying ducklings.

Maybe it's the dog's fault for eating all her dog food!

I'm still blaming Dwayne ;)

(Where was Dwayne you ask? He was off looking for the

bedding we would need to bring home ducklings.)

The innocent box I had seen over and over again on Facebook by duck owners getting "feed".

We did remember the dog food.

So we justified buying two more ducks.
Willpower? No.
Restraint? Maybe, we only bought two!

Besides, we have four growing in the incubator. 

In case you're wondering...and I know you are.

They are Khaki Campbells.

We've named them Hardrock and Coco.

We're really hoping both are hens.

Although we wouldn't mind if one is a drake.

Our total critter count:

7 chicken hens

13 ducks (2 Pekin, 3 Khaki Campbells, 8 Indian Runners)

4 ducks in the incubator

Oh, and one crazy dog.

And possibly one or two crazy duck people... OK maybe four.

Red and White Table Runner

I have finished another quilty thing.

I love the way this table runner turned out.

It might be my favorite.

My goal was to have it finished in time for Valentine's Day but that wasn't meant to be.

AKA I had thread issues and a date with mister seam ripper.

Not fun but lesson learned.

I designed this runner with a specific block in mind.

It's one I'm going to use in a future secret sewing project.

I needed to test it out.

It took a few messed up practice blocks for me to get

it right and not waste copious amounts of fabric.

I tend to tape my blocks to the wall since I don't have a design wall.

The family accuses me of letting my quilting take over the house.

They may be right, I'm taking over the walls now...hehe.

Every inch of this runner, inside and out, was made with scraps.

I love to use what I have on hand.

I'm a scrap quilter at heart.

I quilted the entire thing with my walking foot.

I had fantasies of free motion quilting the curved parts.

Then I did some practice and reality set in.

I need lots more practice.

If you're wondering how I got such good looking arcs...

templates and a washable marker.

A quilter's best friends.

Not bad for doing curves for the first time with my walking foot.

 Runner stats:

17 1/4" x 41 3/4"

finish #2 for 2018, lifetime quilt #18

Mini Snowstorm

Over the weekend we had a mini snowstorm.

If we have to have a snowstorm that's the kind to have.

Almost all of our snow had melted away in the previous days.

Saturday afternoon it started snowing giant flakes.

It kept snowing.

And snowing.

The next thing we new the ground was covered.

And it kept snowing.

And snowing some more.

By the time it was done we had a good three inches.

It was incredibly beautiful.

The best part about it was that our forecast was for the middle 40's the next day.

Haha snow, you're short lived.

This was taken at 3.

This was taken at 4:40.

Connor's snow pillar.

It morphed into several different things.

I think it started as a snowman.

Everything was caked with snow.

Ducks don't mind the snow at all.

In fact a few times this winter we have seen them trying to take a bath in the snow.

It's quite funny to watch.

I think they were expecting some peas.

We took the dog for a walk in the woods.

She was so excited.

I'm not sure who ran around more, Connor or Pepper.

The camera never does this kind of snow any justice.

There was no wind.

Giant snowflakes kept coming down.

Occasionally chunks of snow would fall from a tree.

I'm really hoping this was the last big snow...but I know it's probably not.

It seems like there's always some kind of snowstorm the first week of March.

We'll see.

The Little Incubator

We recently purchased an incubator.

We borrowed one last year.

It was our first time trying to hatch our own eggs.

Everything went well in the beginning.

Then one by one we kept losing ducklings the closer we got to hatching day.

We even lost a couple as they were hatching.

It was quite sad to wait a month only to have them die at the very end.

So we decided to get our own incubator and try it again.

I can't say it was completely the older incubator's fault.

We're new to this and there are a lot of variables.

We're excited to try our hand at another hatch.

Our incubator arrived but we had no eggs to hatch.

When our critters actually do lay an egg I say they have paid rent.

All our hens had quit. (The freeloading slackers.)

We're not sure if it was the cold weather, lack of light, molting, or all of that combined.

We added a light to the duck coop hoping to jump start the eggs.

We think it may have helped as the hens starting laying eggs again.

We're so thankful because we were down to our last 6 for eating.
Most of them are paying rent again. ;)

This is our little incubator.

It holds up to 7 duck eggs.

So of course that's how many we have in there. :)

I love how well you can see the eggs.

It was hard to see the eggs in the other incubator.

Should make hatching day lots of fun!

This little incubator is pretty cool.
You can set the incubation days for your species of fowl.
It also has automatic egg turning that will stop two days before the expected hatch.
It's almost a set and forget kind of thing.
We'll see how it goes.
We will be able to candle the eggs the middle of next week.
That's when we will be able to tell which ones are growing.
Duck incubation takes 28 days.
The wait is on...only 27 days to go.

First

I have my first finish of the year!

I cut all the jeans about a year ago.

I started sewing this project around the end of December.

It's a simple quilt that didn't take long.

Fun facts: there are 255 jean squares, 543 knots, and weighs 7.6 pounds.

(Most full-sized quilts are in the 4 pound range.)

It measures 96 3/4" wide x 85 1/2" long.

It took one week to tie all those knots.

I wish I had counted how many skeins of floss I used but I didn't.

I'm guessing somewhere between 7 and 10.

All of the floss I used came from a tin my mom gave me years ago.

This is truly a scrap quilt.

The only "new" fabric was the sashing, border, and binding...

and that came from my stash.

I had originally bought new flannel for the backing but ended up using an old flannel sheet instead.

It was thicker and we liked the moose traipsing across it.

Another thing that changed was my original plan for the layout.

I had each square so that no two similar/same squares were next to each other.

I even went so far as to number each square. I know, crazy.

When it came time to sew it, I abandoned that.

I tossed my perfectionist ways out the window and went completely random with the sewing.

It didn't matter if two colors were side by side.

And I love the way it turned out.