Firstly, I must show how poor Martin is dealing with cabin fever: (not too well?) That's our 120-gallon aquarium Martin is straddling.
The next photo shows my huge surprise this afternoon. Ducks suffering from cabin fever decided to lay on a nest of eggs. The past few weeks have been so bitter, I let them set, this being my mindset:
A) Eggs were not thought to be fertilized.
B) Eggs were thought to be frozen at some point in the past few weeks of single-digit and negative temps.
C) What harm will it do where the ducks sit (and set, apparently)?
What do I know?
What does that groundhog know?!!
Wednesday, late morning, I got a phone call from a farmer/ rancher down the road: they are in the midst of "lambing week" (50 ewes!). They have a family funeral in Chicago, and will be gone about a week: could they bring down a ewe and her lamb, a case of "failure to thrive"?
Absolutely!
And later that day, another pair showed up in our barn aisle. So I am bottle-feeding and monitoring milk production and all things sheepish. It is really fun, except for the watching-the-clock routine for the next feeding. With human babies, we are reminded by their howling when sustenance is needed. But the barn is out yonder, cold and snowy, and so I set my kitchen alarm to remind me of tiny woolly things with hungry stomachs.
And lastly, a photo of our ducks, seeing their first liquid H2O in weeks and weeks (that is to say, outside of the heated water bucket in the duck barn, which only minimally managed to keep the water thawed, thanks to the single- and negative digit temps this past month.)
The snow has become crusted ice, albeit still many, many inches thick. No more XC skiing for me. *sigh* I guess it's back to the Rec Center and the indoor track for me. The highlight for that, I suppose, is that I love to be in the midst of college kids. They are VIBRANT.
B) Eggs were thought to be frozen at some point in the past few weeks of single-digit and negative temps.
C) What harm will it do where the ducks sit (and set, apparently)?
What do I know?
What does that groundhog know?!!
Wednesday, late morning, I got a phone call from a farmer/ rancher down the road: they are in the midst of "lambing week" (50 ewes!). They have a family funeral in Chicago, and will be gone about a week: could they bring down a ewe and her lamb, a case of "failure to thrive"?
Absolutely!
And later that day, another pair showed up in our barn aisle. So I am bottle-feeding and monitoring milk production and all things sheepish. It is really fun, except for the watching-the-clock routine for the next feeding. With human babies, we are reminded by their howling when sustenance is needed. But the barn is out yonder, cold and snowy, and so I set my kitchen alarm to remind me of tiny woolly things with hungry stomachs.
2 comments:
It sounds like you are in the same situation as we were with the crusted snow. The other day one weatherman described Cape Cod as a "frozen slush field". Luckily it mostly melted off during the rain... until the next six inches we are expecting tomorrow evening. And people tell me it usually only snows once a year here.
I think there's a picture book in your "rural life." It's a life many children don't know anything about. I'd like to see a photo of you feeding the lambs. I love that you thought those duck eggs were frozen. Ha.
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