Starting Again

Yep, I'm starting over again. You remember all those plans to lose weight and get in shape? Well, they were thwarted almost before they began. By four stinking colds in a row. Followed by a month of wallowing in discouragement; followed by yet another cold bug. But I am finally ready to begin again.


I am starting out with a bang this time. Hubby and I started counting calories (loosely) a few days ago. But, I decided I needed a little something more to get me on the right road. So I am forgoing solid food for two weeks. My meals will consist of green smoothies with yogurt and rice protein powder. My recipe is roughly: 3/4 cup plain yogurt (Nancy's brand only), 1/2 cup water, 2 cups fresh spinach, 1 cup frozen strawberries, 1t vanilla, 1T rice protein powder. After two weeks I plan on adding a meal a week (starting with dinner) until I am back to three meals a day. At that point I will do one to two smoothies a day without the yogurt and protein powder. If I can keep my calories under control at that point all will be well :)


I am starting out with 30 min a day on an elliptical machine. At this point I am hoping to increase either ten minutes a week or difficulty and speed...


We are also finally starting to clean up all our excess stuff. This time after the yard sale we will be making trips to the dump and good will. I don't want anything back this time!!! If feels really good to think we will be a lot lighter on stuff in a few weeks :)

Nice Catch :)

The Problem With Ducklings Is...

They're just so darn cute!!!
These guys wanted to follow me around today. I led them through the house a couple of times then let them fall asleep for a while before putting them back in their box. The silly things wanted to burrow into my armpit. Under mama's wing, I guess.

This is what happens when you cut too large a hole in the ducklings water jug. (The idea is to cut a hole just big enough for their heads to fit, this way they can get plenty of water and keep their nostrils clean like they need too without splashing the water all over the place as they would if they just had a shallow dish.)

We took the lid off to take pictures. The funny thing is they looked like they were waiting in line. When one hopped out another would hop in. :)

Can you believe these are our chickens? Not so little and fluffy any more...

Look Who Hatched Yesterday

Aren't they cute! :-)

I have nine more eggs left in the incubator. Doing nothing so far, so keep your fingers crossed for me... ;-)

Without further ado, meet: (names contingent on gender of course, lol)

Meadow

Morton

Missy

I know it's wishful thinking to hope for two hens and a drake with only three birds. I can dream, right ;-P

Morton was the first to pip(a pip is when the bird makes the first hole in the shell, often the stick the tip of their beak out for a breath of fresh air, I say they've pipped when the shell first starts to crack, not sure how accurate that is), but not the first to hatch. The silly duckling used up all his energy by making big holes in his shell instead of a nice neat "zipper". When the wing tip sticking out of one hole was dry and fluffy and he hadn't made any progress in about nine hours I gave him a wee bit of assistance. This is usually a big no-no. If a duckling (or chick) is not strong enough to hatch on it's own it's usually not a strong and healthy bird. In this case I knew I didn't have the humidity in the bator high enough. When there's not enough humidity the bird can dry out too much and stick to the shell, making it impossible to turn inside the egg and finish pecking their way out. Also, Morton was peeping loudly and kicking hard, so I knew he was healthy. Because he made such big holes the membrane around him was quite dry and hard.

I took him out and held him in a warm, wet washcloth. With tweezers I chipped away a little bit of shell, leaving the membrane intact. I wet the membrane with a q-tip dipped in warm water. Put the little guy back in the incubator and left him alone for a few hours. Then when I noticed him kicking hard again I opened up the bator and wet the membrane again. As soon as the water soaked into it the next hard kick from Morton detached the top of the shell. Then he had a wing-tip and a foot sticking out. His head was farther back in the shell, where earlier I had seen his beak sticking out. I think he tried to turn to get at another part of the shell and got stuck. So there was this big duck foot flailing wildly at the air. I stuck my finger up to it so he'd have something to push off of. After several big shoves with rests between Morton was finally free :) I talked to him for just a moment before putting him back in the bator to get warm and dry. Hopefully it was enough for him to imprint on me.

Meadow was a funny little surprise yesterday morning. She was our third pip. We were keeping an eye on Morton. And watching Missy make a perfect, economical little zipper in a perfect circle around the egg. In the twenty minutes we took our eyes off the eggs Meadow went from one tiny hole to completely hatched! LOL I wish I could have seen her bust out of that egg!!!

Then Missy hatched out of her precisely zipped egg. Fun how their different personalities show even from hatching.

Muscovy's are little tail-waggers I've been told and these ducklings started tail-wagging as soon as they were dry, lol, lil' cuties.

Around Our Place Today

I'm back on my feet today. Slow, but up :-) We spent quite a bit of time out in the fresh air this morning. It is delightfully warm and sunny out.

Nate spent a couple hours working on the old chicken coop, getting it ready for new residents. He had some help from a couple of fine little men...

Mama helped too, holding wire while papa stapled. I think we are almost ready :-) We need to build new roosts and nail a few more boards around the bottom. Eventually the roof will have to be replaced; but we are grateful to not have to create a whole new building.

Our garden is coming along nicely

Joshua's lettuce

Peas and carrots, also Joshua's...

Beans, hopefully :-) (bird protection, if you were wondering, they love to scarf the seeds)

Lemon balm and lavender

Asparagas

This one didn't get a chance to bloom further ;-)

Just Rambling

Today is a bit dreary in spite of the sunshine. We all have a nasty cold; the kids have been sick for over a week now, I am coming up on a week, and Nate, sadly has come down with it as well. While it is an irksome and painful bug I am grateful not to have a sinus infection or bronchitis.

Yesterday afternoon the boys and I got outside for a bit. We found some ''pill bugs'' for the chickens. Brannon also found a small snail which he decided to see if the chicks would try to eat. Expecting some entertainment he added it to the second dish of pill bugs he offered the chicks. He came running inside with round eyes. "The striped one swallowed it whole!" I think I was as amazed as he.

Our radishes are ready to pick already, they grow amazingly fast. Especially when you are laying on the couch for a week and don't check on them. ;-)

Well, my dizzy brain is abandoning me already. So, good-bye until I feel better...

Yesterday's Scenery