It's been a pretty uneventful week. It looks like Fall is here to stay. It's been getting cooler and cooler every day. Last night it got down to 38.

On Wednesday, I went to Illinois with Dad. He's decorating a restaurant with historic pictures, so we spent a few hours at the town museum going through boxes of pictures, and picking some out to use on the walls. Once we finished there, I rode along with him to Wisconsin to bring M.S.S. home for the weekend. We didn't get back home until 2:00 Thursday morning.

Tomorrow morning someone is coming to buy some ducks. I have about 20 that need to go, but she only wants 3. I'm planning to take quite a few to the BIG poultry show in Indy in November. Hopefully I can sell enough to pay the entry fee.

TTYL

Sometime in the next week or two, Jason and I are supposed to go get two pairs of Mandarin ducks (this isn't my picture, I just borrowed it). I need to refurbish a cage to keep them in. They are exotic ducks, and have the reputation of being pretty wild. We are getting them from an 11 year old boy though, and his are supposed to be pretty tame. I will post pictures if we ever get them.

Work

It's a beautiful day, 65 and VERY sunny. I have a whole list of things I want to get done, and I really NEED to get them done today because it's supposed to rain for the next 3 days...But, I have NO energy. That's the problem with my job, it doesn't take much brain power, so I have all morning to think and make plans. Unfortunately, it does take lots of energy, so by the time I get home, I have lots of plans, and no motivation.

Hmmm, for some reason blogger doesn't want to upload pictures right now. I guess I will try again later.

Now I better go accomplish at least one thing, so the day won't be a total waste.

Church Picnic

These are some pictures from our church picnic on Saturday. We had a cook-out, and played tug-of-war, had a sack race, and an egg toss. When it was almost time to go home, Gabe worked up enough nerve to ask for a motorcycle ride. One of the dads in church rode his motorcycle to the picnic, and gave Gabe, Miriam, Teddy and Seth rides. They really enjoyed it.

Introducing Hoosier Heart's Farm Nepoleon. He's a 7 month old Nigerian Dwarf buck. Nigerians are miniature dairy goats. Jason has two does, and "Leo" will be their husband when he gets older.

Here's a picture I took today of the puppy we kept. His name is Broden. He is growing like a weed, and is absolutely adorable. He is also one of the best behaved puppies I've ever met. He LOVES everybody, and tries very hard to please. When he's being obedient, he watches me constantly to make sure I see what a good boy he is. He comes down to the barn with me every night when I milk the goats. He tried to chase chickens a couple of times, but then he figured out that was a bad thing to do...Now he goes out of his way to make a wide berth around them.

He loves goat milk, so he gets a bowl full every night "fresh from the source". He actually knows where it comes from, and he sits beside the milk stand watching intently until his bowl is full.

It's been raining on and off for the last two days and nights. I miss the sun! All this rain is keeping the grass green, and growing, but the corn and soybean fields are turning yellow. That means Fall isn't very far away...

The yard is a muddy mess. Miriam and the ducks think it's wonderful.

At the nature park

JM and I took the twins, Lem, and Miriam for a picnic and hiking at the DePauw nature park. It's an old quarry that has been turned into a park and outdoor classroom for DePauw. The bottom of the quarry is a large shallow pond. We hiked around the rim.

Bird's eye view of Canada geese. There were about 100 on the little islands in the pond.

On one of the overlooks.
Miriam resting before the hike.
We noticed these odd looking geese, and got as close as we could. They are blue snow geese. They are fairly common in some parts of the US, but not around here, so it was cool to see them. I was very glad I had the camera!

It's another beautiful day. I think we're going to go have a picnic lunch somewhere. I spent a long time doing chores, and moving birds around. I tried to take some pictures of the geese for my website, but they were too busy playing in the pools to pose!

Mom and dad, and some of my siblings are on their way to Wisconsin to visit MSS. Sooo...I guess that means I'm in charge here. It's a beautiful day. I worked until 2:00, and then worked outside here until 4:00. Now I'm about ready for a nap!

Yesterday evening Gabe fell out of the barn loft. He and Miriam are not supposed to play up there, but they find it VERY tempting, especially when no one else is out in the barn to remind them not to. Apparently he was sitting on a hay bale, and it rolled off the edge. Fortunately the hay bale hit the ground first, and broke open when he landed on top of it. Mom and Dad took him to the ER late last night because he kept complaining that his shoulder hurt. They X-rayed his shoulder, neck, chest and stomach, and did a CAT scan. He's fine, just a few scratches, and bruises. They gave him a sling, and he's enjoyed wearing it..makes him feel special I guess! LOL

More show pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the show. I wanted to take more, but the batteries ran out on the camera.
Dark Brahma pullet, Best of breed.
Black bibbed Call drake
White Mallard drake

Saxony hen I bought a used camera off ebay. Before that I was using one that was 5 years old. The new one zooms...and boy does that help!

Poultry Show

Well I am here, I will post some pictures from the poultry show we went to on the 2nd. We took 47 birds, mostly ducks, but a few chickens as well. If you aren't a poultry person...sorry.

Black Ameraucana pullet. I hatched her from eggs I bought off ebay...LOL She won RB (reserve of breed).



Buff hen. Reserve champion medium duck.
White call hen. 1st in her class.
Dark Brahma cockerel. He's a huge bird!
Nearly all of our birds did well, and we made a lot of contacts. I will post more pictures later.

Build a better mousetrap...

I think its time to find a mousetrap! We have a very faithful barn cat, but one cat can only eat so much. We would just add cats, but she is also a very territorial barn cat, and won't tolerate other cats in HER barn.

I went out to the barn at 5:00 in the afternoon, and found these 7 little visitors in the corn. They managed to get in, but couldn't get out. Very cute...but very gross! I brought the cat into the feed room and tipped the can so the mice could get out. She caught two right away, and was hunting the others when I left. My younger siblings reacted in very different ways...Some wanted to get the bb gun and shoot them in the can, others thought I should take them outside and release them. Oh well, tonight I will go to the feed store and get a "tin cat" mouse trap (it's supposed to catch up to 30 mice). Once they are caught, I have no clue what I will do with them...but they are definately going to move off the property!