The Site is Back UP!!!

So after being down for over a week, my site is finally back up! I don’t know about you but I am pretty excited about that. At first I was kind of like, well that’s annoying BUT I’ll sleep in for a couple of days and try to enjoy the break. But then as the days went on, and on, and on….then I started looking at yummy food and some beautiful food photography on Pinterest and I started missing it.

Thanks so much for sticking with me! Thankfully I think I was able to get recipes to pretty much everyone who asked, but I have to say, it is much nicer (for everyone, I am sure) to be able to just hop on here and get what you need 😉

But this site is now with a different hosting site which, I think, will be much better .

During this whole down-time thing I realized I haven’t really blogged in a while….did you know we now have like 26 ducks?

We had one more but our turkeys went on a rampage and for whatever reason decided to pick on ducks one sunny sunday morning – still haven’t really figured out what bee was under their bonnet, but they managed to beat on one unfortunate duck so badly that he had to be butchered. Since it was a HE we were going to butcher him anyway, but it would have been nice to have waited until he was really big enough.

But he was tasty.

Thanks to Julia and the Art of French Cooking.

Mr. Chemist and I tried to convince ourselves that it was strange to hear his friends quacking outside the kitchen window while we were eating him, but I guess we are good farmers and weren’t the least bothered by it.

Speaking of Mr. Chemist.

I am a little remorseful that I named him that, because he has become infatuated with ducks.

It’s so bad, I even got him a shirt for his birthday that says, “Duck Whisperer”.

And he likes it.

I should have named him, “The Duck Whisperer” for the site…oh well. I wasn’t aware of the infatuation at the time.

Seriously. The man is constantly bringing home ducks!

We started with 4 Khaki Campbells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We fell in love with them.

So we got 7 mallards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they were fun too. That was when the obsession took hold.

Mr. Chemist came home on the 4th of July from town with 10 Indian Runner ducks. They are the most absurd things…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{That’s Apricot}

We thought we were done.

Then Mr. Chemist went to Nebraska for the weekend with our two oldest children and his sister. His birthday was that weekend and he called me asked if I would get him a duck for his birthday. I told him no, but I said, “Maybe if you are lucky the ducks we already have will lay you an egg for your birthday.” and left it at that.

The next day, I knew they would home in a few minutes and had finished all the barn chores so thought I would hop on Facebook for a minute and found this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ya that would be a duck in the back seat.

Turns out there were two of them.

And they were already laying. So he not only got 2 ducks for his birthday – he got two duck eggs.

He was quite pleased with himself.

Well after that I figured what the heck. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Right? So I saw a listing for 2 free cayuga hens so I got them for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then he got really mad at me because I traded his beloved khaki campbell drake, Gilbert, for another khaki campbell drake to the gal I got the cayuga’s from because her drake and hens were all related. I didn’t think he would notice….but the new drake didn’t turn out to have the pretty black head that Gilbert had. So I have named him Charlie because the khaki’s are all named after Anne of Green Gables characters. He is named after Charlie Sloan, who is nice and everything, but is no Gilbert.

On the same day I traded Gilbert for Charlie, Mr. Chemist brought home I THINK 4 more ducks.

Because they were free.

Are we running a duck shelter? I am beginning to think so….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{This is the ducks watching a hawk flying overhead}

On top of all the ducks, we also have 13 chickens (we had 14 but we ate our rooster because he kept attacking the kids and crowing all night long).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 rabbits, 7 goats (I just sold 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and 2 turkeys, named Thomas and Daffodil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next thing to get is a cat. I am going to shelter in the next couple days to find myself a good mouser.

We have lots of mice.

And 4 kids. Who I haven’t even mentioned in this post except in reference to ducks.

We do love them more than the ducks though. I promise.