Wood Ducks!

We had some unusual visitors this week. Hello cutie!

Isn't he handsome?

Such a cute couple!

(these are all shots of the same two ducks-- not a whole flock or anything)
According to one of my bird books, Wood Ducks are considered one of the most beautiful birds in North America! It doesn't say by whom. They are in fact quite striking. These pictures (captured by my dear daughter Charlotte) were taken from my garden about 100 feet or so from the pond. They may not be postcard quality but I sure am glad she got them!

I REALLY needed that!

NOTE-Blogger likes to underline and color my text. I gave up repeatedly fixing it so it's kinda random.


What a glorious day! Warm. Sunny. Exactly what I needed. I spent the entire afternoon in the garden pulling weeds and generally tidying up. The kids ran around and played and got dirty just like kids lucky enough to live in the country ought to. My favorite was either when they were climbing on the hay ring like it was jungle gym crowing like roosters at the top of their lungs, or when Emily was walking around carrying and talking to the big snail I found.

All in all it was just a lovely day. Even the "weeds" were somehow inspirational:)Elijah looks like he has burst out in song!

Farm kitty basks


One final thing- here are some "after" pictures of the pond. I'll try to remember to take one from the same spot as the "before" and "during" pics.

Can ya dig?

My super cool neighbor chick posted about needing a tractor and since I can relate to that, I thought I'd share some of our tractor history. We talked about needing a tractor for about 2 years before we actually got one. This is my husband on our first tractor, a 194?(or was it 195?) Ford Workmaster.

This served us well until we(read he) broke the axle. We found a neat old guy who fixes and sells old tractors and he gave us a good trade value for a very slightly less antique International Harvester B-275. I can't seem to find a pic of that one. We are still using it 2 years later, although there is a laundry list of things it needs(tires, brakes, you know, nothing very essential). I really wish I could find the pic of our daughter driving the Ford. She was about 14 and Dad taught her to drive it. And let her drive it! Freaked me out a little but it really was cool.

Last summer we decided that this spot needed to have a pond.

So we did what any"normal" person would do, we rented a backhoe. Now mind you, it had not rained at all for about 2-3 months. Perfect time to dig, says we.

Quiz: How do you break a record drought? Why just rent heavy equipment for the weekend, of course! It started drizzling immediately upon delivery and did not stop all weekend. By the way, this was at the end of the week that the Governor of Alabama had declared a "week of prayer" for rain. It was awsome timing in that regard, but I was still a little irked.

That's me in the blue raincoat being irked and supervisory all at the same time.

I'll put up recent pictures soon (I'll have to take some).

Oooh, know what you get when you get a pond?

TADPOLES! Lots of tadpoles.