christy wins!!!!

christy won my contest for the best fibonacci poem. she wrote a great poem and deserves the prize. yes, okay, she WAS the only one who wrote one, but i had already decided that my readers are a somewhat rebellious group that doesn't take to challenges or suggestions very well. so that's not exactly my fault, is it?

so if christy will contact me, i will make arrangement to award her fabulous prize, a $5 Michael's card. yeah, you wished you'd written something now, don't you? tough.










oh, yes, and happy birthday to the first of three july birthdays in our family: my son-in-law, christian plautz.

the darker side of DUCKS

some may question that ducks have a darker side. hah! (mirthless laugh). our two female ducks are "on the nest," as they say in "it's a wonderful life," except that they really are. sitting on nests. about 23 hours a day. our one male duck is also sitting on a nest 23 hours a day. he was guarding the female ducks and nests first, but then i think they got annoyed with him and gave him a couple of eggs and said, "here. do something useful, and for heaven's sake, BE QUIET."

these female ducks have undergone a complete change in personality since they laid their eggs.



yes, they have gone from docile, sweet, funny pets, to being threatening and sinister. the other day i went in their pen (to give them food, mind you, and they know me!), and they both came at me. one aimed a peck at my shoe, i aimed a kick at its head. both of us missed. they pecked at chickens who were just standing there, and then one ran out of the pen and pecked one of my cats. now, you can't that that is the behavior of a psychologically normal duck. they resembled nothing so much as animated bulb horns (see fig. 1).

so that's what's happening on my little wannabe farm today. anybody want a duck?

my new science project

this is my new science project: i took four eggs out of the ducks' nest (they lay eggs in there, but neither of them has shown any inclination to actually set the eggs), and stuck them under a broody hen who has taken her stand in one of the nesting boxes and hasn't seen the light of day for a week. for those of you who are city people*, a "broody" hen is one who suddenly takes it into her head (where, believe me, there is p-l-e-n-t-y of room) that she HAS to have babies or die. so she lays eggs in the nesting box (or under a bush) and insists on sitting there day after day after day, waiting for them to hatch. my broody hen will wait a long time, since she's never even SEEN a rooster in her life. there's a chance that the duck eggs are fertilized, so i guess we'll see what happens.

*we have lived in the country for exactly two years.