Friday bullets, March 15, 18

I'll jump right in, thus avoiding working on the article I need to get written.

Yes, it turns out we have a giant pussy willow growing next to our little stream. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.

Because it is very nearly spring, I decided to start The Secret Garden as our tea time book. I don't know how many times I've read this out loud, and was surprised when the youngest of my crew didn't know it. But no matter how many times I've read it out loud, I am always caught off guard by the need to do some editing on the fly as I read in the first few chapters, due to some no longer even vaguely appropriate racial terms. Sigh.
I can now cross "dried baby chick with a blow dryer" off my list of things I've never done. When we got up yesterday morning, we discovered one of the chicks had a shaving totally glued onto her skin by poop. It took quite a soaking in warm water to loosen it. Thus the need to dry the chick with the blow dryer.
I am waist deep in laundry. Last Friday, J. discovered that the drain pipe from the utility sink in the basement had come disconnected. It meant that I couldn't do laundry. I didn't really miss it. J. was able to fix the pipe, but that means that now I have more laundry than ever. Some people got to stay extra long in their pajamas yesterday morning due to waiting for clean clothes.
One of the goals with this move was to have a bigger garden; one that would have enough room to grow everything we wanted to grow. This spring, we plan on putting it in, and start growing things. This is why I have been more than a little consumed with this catalogue.

I want all the seeds. Yes, I know that would be ridiculous, but still...

It is a little tricky to take care of the chicks and ducklings, and certainly takes more than one person. The chicks are perpetually trying to get out and Nefertiti is perpetually trying to get in. Thankfully Kenzie doesn't care in the least, but boy, Olive loves those little balls of fluff. Usually she is pretty good, but a couple of days ago, to everyone's surprise, she leaned over and picked a chick up in her mouth. A. screamed, Olive dropped the chick, a little girl scooped the slightly damp chick up and deposited it back in the box. The chick is fine, A. may have lost a year or two of her life.
We went to the library last Wednesday. Now that everyone is reading so well, they have become aware of all of the books in the library that they can now read. It was very exciting, and we came home with a lot of books.
There is nothing I love more than to see a child curled up in a chair, reading a book.
This past week's school has been a bit over taken by all the ducklings and chicks. It takes time to keep them clean and fed, and they are so interesting to watch and play with, that there has been little interest in doing much else. I'm just as bad as they are.
Finally, I'll share some chick and duckling pictures. I promise that there will eventually be other things written about here.