Fantastic Flock Fun

Some duck eggs.

The one on the left is smaller than normal and the one on the right is bigger than normal.

They made a great pair for a picture.

And yes, the big egg was a double yolk-er.

It's always fun to be surprised by one of those.

I did not add any water to the eggs.

Duck eggs have clear whites.

Ra still tolerates the chicken whisperer... and his hugs.

Found these butterflies in some mud.

I missed it when there were seven hanging out together.

This hen, which we lovingly call Juanita, still lets herself in the yard.

She's in the yard quite a lot lately.

I think she's the prettiest hen we have in the flock.

She's super friendly and doesn't mind the dog.

And, thankfully, the dog doesn't mind her.

Another random non-chicken picture.

:)

I love the way the drake is floating in the water.

He looks like he's thinking of something sarcastic to say...

well, if ducks could talk.

Except for the claws, I love duck feet.

They're very similar to chicken feet.

They are basically less knobby in the joints with webbing between the toes.

And they make the coolest slapping sounds when they run across a hard surface.

We've learned a lot about ducks over the last year.

Like roosters, drakes will sound an alarm if there's danger around.

They cock their heads to one side and start their strange calls.

The hens will then look to see what it is.

On this particular day, when I looked up to see what was

causing the alarm, a small airplane was high in the sky.

We're always amazed at what the drakes see way up there.

Usually it's a large bird of some kind.

Not this time.

Giganor is getting quite, well, gigantic!

His head is almost the height of Pepper's back.

Think about that for a minute.

He's almost the height of a 75 pound dog's back.

Trust me, he's huge!

Thankfully he's still like a box of rocks.

So we decided to catch Gigantor today and weigh him.

He tipped the scales at 8+ pounds.

He's 5 1/2 months old with another year to go before he reaches full maturity.

As a perspective on his weight:

The hens we butchered last year were older and were around 7 pounds.

Sorry, Ra, you're the "little" guy.

It looks like we have three roosters.

We don't.

The three different breeds have the same kind of single style comb.

It's a Rhode Island Red hen in front with the two roosters in the background.

63

Papa would have been 63 today.

I have been dreading this day, not knowing what to do with it.

I can't ignore it and he's not here to celebrate.

This day is hard.

He couldn't wait to get to 63 so he could retire.

He had plans but it wasn't meant to be.

Last year my dad was in a car accident.

He was fine but the other driver, who was at fault, totaled dad's car.

The insurance finally kicked in and he got a new vehicle.

I made him a cake for his birthday last year because he was supposed to come for a visit.

He had to postpone that visit so he could finish paper work during that time off.

I never told him about the cake because I was going to

make another one for when he came a few weeks later.

That was the plan.

He was planning on coming on Saturday.

He was killed the Thursday before.

A few weeks ago I was going through the photos on the computer and

came across the pictures I've used for this post.

Somehow I had forgotten them.

I love this picture.

It captures my dad well.

His orneriness anyways

Whew!

It has been a really long time (according to blogging time) since I last posted.

I didn't realize how long it had been.

Hm. Not sure where to start.

In a nutshell: got ready for camp, went to camp, recovered from camp.

Windows upgrade.

That pretty much sums up why I haven't blogged in a while.

Before camp:

We did a little shooting around on the farm.

Dwayne set up a can and told the boys to see who could hit it first.

Connor smoked Nolan.

It was quite funny.

Shooting some cat tails.

Finally got a picture of this cat.

It's one of the zillion barn cats down on the farm (the other end from where we live).

I'm not a fan of cats but this one has cool markings.

It pretty much sums up how a cat is.

One minute he's your friend, and the next he's your enemy.

Connor showed me this clod of dirt he picked up.

Doesn't it look like a small island?

Some beautiful morning mammatus clouds.

One of Connor's many creations.

He also made a fleet of small ships.

Although he begged me to take pictures of all the ships, there's too many to put in a post.

Camp:

So this year was Nolan's sixth and final year as a camper.

It was Connor's fourth year and final year as a junior camper.

This was also my fourth year helping in the kitchen.

It's my job to tend to the needs of the campers with special diets.

My initial list was 15 this year!

We've never had so many.

I knew I needed help so I recruited a young lady that used to go to church with us.

We divided the list to those who brought meals and

those who needed advice on what to eat/not eat.

And we volunteered for snack drops

which meant we got to use a golf cart!

Connor at the rifle range.

This was Dwayne's third year helping.

He does dishes and cleans latrines.

As you can see he has a lot of fun even though it's a lot of work.

Camp was an awesome time as usual.

Nolan participated in the skits this year and loved it.

We told Nolan that all of us were going to camp next year.

This year he was to be on the look out for how he could serve next year.

He's decided to be a CIT (counselor in training).

We explained that it was going to be hard work.

He said that's what he wants to do.