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According to my calendar, and my memory, my four Muscovy ducklings range in age from about 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 weeks.    I'm having a great time watching them grow and learning about these ducks  by observation.  The way their feathers come in is especially fascinating to me, as i watch them go from fuzzy, to spotted, to more solidly feathered.  I've also learned that these ducks definitely LOVE water, deeply LOATHE being handled by humans such as myself, and grow very very quickly.  Also, everyone who ever said that ducks are messy was telling the truth in understatement.  Chickens are clean freaks compared to these guys.   Here are some cute pictures of them in their little pool, taken this morning. They can't just drink water, they have to get in the water and then drink it. They're very curious about "outside," but they haven't dared check it out yet.  Here, you can see how big they are.  This "pool" is ab...

After you read this post,  you might be convinced that i'm truly fruit loops. S'ok. But first, look at the beautiful flowers that my sweet love sent to me at work today.  Just because he's nice. I really think i like this guy.  ;) Oh yeah, now about the fruit loops. Today, i got to do something that i've been wanting to do for approximately 3 years and 5 months. I am so excited! After i did it, i repeatedly yelled "YAAAYYY!"  because the happiness was too much to hold in. I have been thinking about it and wishing for it and planning about it for so long. I had to hold back the tears. I might still have a good happy cry over it. Are you ready? I went online and purchased our first 3 pounds of BEES!!!!! Honey Bees!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! I am scheduled on April 28 to take a small road trip and pick up something that looks like this, from R Weaver Apiaries in Navasota. I couldn't be more excited.  I can't wa...

It's funny how hesitant i am to admit to you anyone that i have weakness, especially spiritual weakness.  Not funny so much as completely illogical.  Don't admit that you can identify with anyone else!!  They'll know you're not perfect! Duh! And so i commence. I am so weak.  Recently, i have seen my weakness in my inability to keep up certain "Christian" habits.  You know, the ones....read your Bible and pray every day and go to church twice a weak and also women's group and revival meetings for the entire month of February and fast through the month of January and volunteer for the nursery once a month and ............ and ............ and ........ Honestly, after 30-something years of attempting to follow Christ, i still struggle with the first few items in that list.  And sometimes accomplish the ones at the end of the list without the ones at the beginning. Recently, i have started making use of the fact that God is not afraid of techno...

I had a plan. I planned to be telling you all about my newly built keyhole garden. But alas.  My keyhole garden is still a figment of my plans' imagination. And some wet phone books on the ground. I'll have to explain more about my keyhole garden, or the version of a keyhole garden that i'm planning to build, later. Suffice it to say that the materials needed to build a "small garden wall," i have finally learned, are the same as those needed to build a 25 foot, 3 foot tall, brick wall.  So ...  not so "small" after all. Thankfully, i found a happy source of super duper cheap bricks. Now, i will learn how to build a brick wall. Yay me! Do you remember way back in the day, two or three years ago, when i decided to learn, all by myself, how to butcher a chicken, by doing it by myself.  By myself. ??? Well, i may have mentioned, once or twice, since then, that i seem to have the ability to raise things that run free and multiply on t...

When we first moved into our tiny woodland house, we were fascinated by the many dry creek beds that are carved throughout our property.  It didn't take long before the first big rain came, and we saw what had carved so many tiny creeks.  Our property is very near a gully, and at a a bottom of the hill kind of point in comparison to the properties that are nearby.  So it turns out that our property becomes the pathway for all the water from multiple properties nearby, to make its way to the giant gully on the other side of us. In an attempt to help the water benefit us and not sog up our land, my creek digging super hero grabbed his shovel and went to work.   And then we entered a drought.   Good timing.  After all that work, we were starting to feel a little silly.   And even though i know they say that we're still in a drought, the near-flood that we had here two days ago, and the ample rain in our forecast, make it very diff...

I'm  a little stuck on foraging.  That workshop i went to last week made an impact on me, and i have a lot of foraging interest to work out before i can talk about other things too much. Like for example, i haven't told you yet, that while i was at said workshop last week, my husband went to the store and bought me a CAR.  Yeah,  I haven't even told you that yet. So, back to foraging. One of the most intriguing parks of the Edible Weeds Nature Walk that i told you about last week, was the part about the Dwarf Palmetto.  A plant that grows profusely in my little wet woods, and one which i have considered to be a weed.  Rumor has it that some misguided migratory birds must have accidentally pooped  Dwarf Palmetto seeds in our forests some hundreds of years ago, and that's why we have tiny wannabe Palm Trees growing in the middle of the Piney Woods. Well, to my delight, Merriwether (you know, the edible weeds guy) told us that the tap-roo...

When we first bought this house, almost 3 1/2 years ago, and the tiny forest that comes with it, i was fascinated with all the wonderful plant life around me. I spent hours and days and weeks scouring the internet and taking pictures of my plants and trees, in order to identify what is around me and what it's good for.  I dreamed of learning to use the forest as a natural pharmacy to treat minor ailments, scratches, burns, allergies....what have you. I learned a few things, but i was also learning about raising a thousand chickens and how to butcher chickens and how to survive without running water, and .....what have you. The dream remained, but was dormant. This past weekend, i was happy to attend a Wildlife Workshop, put on by Texas Parks and Wildlife at a nature center near Houston.  The entire day was very interesting, but the real reason i went was for the optional extra at the end of the day:  Edible Weeds Nature Walk. Oh BOY!!!! A fascinating gentleman...

You may or may not recall that the last time i wrote, i was eagerly anticipating the impending debut of Muscovy Ducks in Rogers Country.  And then there was dead blog air for some two weeks. Sorry about that. I tried to blog, but something went wrong with my free dial-up internet connection, and while i could connect, i couldn't make anything happen beyond that.  It seemed silly to call customer service to complain that my completely free service wasn't working fast enough, so i decided i would type an entry on my computer, transfer it to my phone, and attempt to publish that way. I wrote a really cute and informative blog entry about all the wonderfulness of muscovy ducks, and when i was finished, edited, and ready to transport, the program failed and erased my blog entry. I believe this is know by some in the blogosphere as and "epic fail." Thus, i broke down, made my decision, and coughed up enough cash for the cheapest and slowest DSL connection possibl...