Busy, Busy, Busy...

So much going on, mental notes are needing to be purged here for The Record. :)  Forgive me for running on and on and on...you are under no obligation to read this hot mess!  However, insights and advice are always appreciated. :)

• HERE A CHICK, WHERE'S THE CHICKS?  Momma Chicken's effort at hatching her own was unsuccessful.  Not sure why.  We are letting her recuperate some before we decide whether to take someone up on their kind offer to supple us with fertile eggs.  Since our visiting roo has been evicted and went to Orting to help his human mommy farm sit, this will be how we have to apease Momma's child-rearing interests for the time being.

• LAME DUCK  Racer is hopefully on the mend.  I asked that my birthday gift be a trip to the vet for the little duck--no better gift than making sure an animal is cared for.  The vet reports that with a bit of proper game feed and some anti-inflamatories, the duck has a chance of recovery.  I had suspected such in pouring over the Storey's Guide to Ducks, discovering that information we were given about feed being wrong.  Unfortunately, the sales person told us that ducks can nosh chicken feed without a problem, however this isn't exactly right.  Ducks need more vitamins than chickens do in the forms of niacin and biotin along with a few others.  As soon as i read this last week, we started supplementing the food with brewer's yeast, as Storey's advises.  However, it was too late.  The avian vet that saw the duck didn't seem to think that supplementing was the way to go either, so now we feed them game bird food.  Unfortunately, we haven't been able to source organic feed for the ducks, so we are debating whether to eat the eggs these guys may produce.  It will be so nice to finally be able to let them loose in the yard soon.  They are going to town on the slugs...we need something to save our asparagus!!  Needless to say, the Great Duck Experiment has left us frazzled.  Moose and i are in agreement that we wouldn't do this again...ducklings are so much more work that chickens!  That and it proves my rule is a good one...never adopt an animal until you've read up on it!! 

• LANGUISHING LILACS  The lilac blooms have faded and i've been reading up a little on their care.  According to what i've read, now is the time to prune, as they are setting buds for next year's blooms.  Needing to watch a few You Tube videos to see how this is done. 

• THE ABOMINABLE GROWMAN VS. ME   The weeds in the ginormous greenhouse continue to flourish, while the seedlings in the little greenhouse beg to be transplanted.  They are starting their mutiny now...i've lost a few of the tomatoes and the squash are threatening to follow suit.  Hoping this weekend, after the recital, we can get the transplants finished and the corn planted.  The beauty of the A.G. is that we are experiencing our first successful crop of cauliflower and our first tomato flowers without pest problems, so far.  The beans i experimented with in there are slowly recovering from a pest attack...with as many pill bugs surrounding the seedlings, i thought they may be the culprits, but that doesn't sound right, eh?  I'm thinking it has to be baby slugs, so in with the ducks, i say!

• OLD SCHOOL  Even though we are no where near finished with this year's work, it's also time to start planning next year's school adventures.  Oy!  We are already signed up for a fabulous boat trip in the Puget Sound, where the kids will get their sea-legs learning a thing or two about sailing (let's hope in the last of summer's sunshine) and learn about some of the biology of the Sound through lectures and microscopes!  That's going to be a blast!  We also have a field trip planned to visit King Tut.  Both trips Moose gets to join us on, so that is an added bonus.  And of course the year that i swore i would be done with the children's theatre, they are planning an amazing season!  So there's that.  I think with that, our field trips should be complete.  Then there's the worst of it....book work.  Thinking of trying our hands at a little unschooling...maybe a little unit study thrown in here or there.  The next few months will be so busy with Irish dance, as Cookie Monster tries her hand at a national competition in November.  Whew!  Maybe we should have moved into a condo?  :)

•  DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE WEEDS  Because we can barely make a dent in the mowing!  Thinking that maybe our school next year should include a few unit studies on farm animals that munch, so that we might be able to add a "Moose's Lil' Helper" to the fray next spring.  Sheep?  Goats?  God forbid this soon, a horse??!?