Oct.16…. A this and that catch up…

Sept was a busy month with picking jewelweed and making it into soap to treat our poison ivy rashes.

There was also three weddings that we attended. The first wedding was in Pa ,held at a wedding barn. It was beautiful!

We grilled the beef brisket for this wedding. We grilled the meat in Ga on our big grill then packed the wrapped brisket in three large coolers . We left late Friday evening ,arriving in time Sat morning to the reception for slicing the brisket and putting in it cookers to keep warm.

Then we went to Md to attend two wedding ,one on a Friday a niece on hubby’s side,on Saturday a nephew on my side.

We left Thursday evening to cross the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel,for Hurricane Ian was kicking up some winds causing an alert there. We cross safely late that night with a sigh of relief.

We had a lovely weekend ,that quickly came to an end.

Hubby loaded up some door sections from his brothers business,that he have ordered for a job to do that week. Off we headed for home never once thinking that Hurricane Ian had a surprise ahead for us.

We arrived at the bridge around 3:00 pm Monday,to be told we couldn’t cross for there was an alert 2 , that meant no vehicle carrying cargo in the back of pickups allowed on the bridge. Winds were not to subside until morning. We then decided that waiting in the truck all night was not our cup of tea, we promptly find a hotel,relaxing the rest of the evening,getting a good nights sleep ,had a good breakfast in the morning . we were on our way back to cross the bridge by 7:30 am with no problems. Here a photo of the waves.

Old house on the hill

Remember this old house ? It is here in Tennessee, nestled in the hills,it is also in need of some care. It was left go for quite a few years,with windows shot out, trash left inside…(and outside), and a small fire damage where the wood stove was.

Floor damage

We are going to gut the house down to the frame and outside wall. The main structure of the house is good, we still are pulling up the old flooring to be sure the floor foundation is fine. Here’s some more of the mess we are making.

Trashy kitchen

Now we need to get some dumpsters to load all this mess into.

Some random photos from Ga and Tennessee.

Sunset in Ga.

Our little camper set up while we work on the old house. At one time it

looked like this…

Until the next update in my small world… Take Care!

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Dec. 8… Fall,Flowers and Failure…

Three F’s … if I was in school ,I don’t think I would have gone home to Mom. 😳 Today though those three F’s are all positive even if one of those words are failure.

I’ll start with fall first. I know that up north a lot of y’all are having snow and cold temps,here in the south we are just getting through the fall that was surprisingly pretty for the south. I’ll show you then let you decide… just promise not to compare it to the New England States.😀

It is also time for Camellias to start blooming..

The hard frost didn’t kill the Gerber daisies up against the house

Of course a confederate rose can’t be left out even though they all died in the first hard frost. I photoed these the day before it frosted.

Now on to the failure…
It is often a challenge to keep Leona’s mind busy ,as she is very limited to want she can do. We got her a iPad so she can do puzzles with her nose,(she has no control over her hands),she can watch movies ,only I limit them as I feel there’s more to life than movies. … The new challenge…

Yep… to hatch some duck eggs!
Leona thinks it would be fun to add ducks to the farm. I agreed ,and that it would be fun to hatch them.
Amazon shopping soon started,looking for an incubator. That was the easy part!
Shopping for duck eggs this time of year was more of a challenge. EBay was the place we settled on ,purchasing 6 ducks.
I researched YouTube and google for information on how to hatch duck eggs,learning all I could on this subject.
The day arrived when the eggs came in the mail,of course the incubator was up and running according to the advice from my search. Seven eggs were placed inside,and the waiting began.
The family was all here on Thanksgiving day,excitement was high on candling the eggs that day. The grandchildren gathered around in the dark bathroom ,one holding the flashlight for me as I chose an egg…. sad to say our excitement went to disappointment! No signs of life in any of the eggs.😢 we were all a sorry group walking out of that bathroom. The grands sat in the living room for awhile with sad faces then I heard Reagan say, “ MomMom are you going to try again, you aren’t going to stop now are you?” Well, that snap me out of that sorry mood! Of course, I’m going to try again! We wouldn’t have baby ducklings for Christmas but we will shortly after New Years.(Maybe! 😁) so with promises to post them photos of what’s going on in the incubator,everyone was back to normal.
I ordered more eggs that have arrived and are in the incubator on day two!

So what went wrong? First when I did the research I should have typed in hatching SHIPPED eggs.
Shipping eggs is hard on eggs,often dislodging the air sack so that it floats around . First problem
With that problem one needs hatch the eggs in a paper carton with the egg point down so the air sack stays in the top where it should be. Second thing I did wrong..
The third mistake…..is that one needs to gently hand turn the eggs after seven days of sitting still in the incubator,even with the turning it’s different than with normal hatching.
So cross your fingers along with me so that on day seven I can carefully candle to see if there is life! It was mention not to candle often shipping eggs until day seven as to not disturb the air sack any more than needed.
The failure really hasn’t been a failure for Leona and I are learning this together and it has been enjoyable ,even with that first shock of all dead eggs!
So what kind of duck are we trying to hatch…
The Silver Appleyard duck.
Have a great week!