Little Opal Update

Opal has settled in nicely to life here at the farm. After the first night Marcus decided that perhaps she wasn’t AS annoying as he thought Sunday and maybe it was alright if she touched him after all. He has mostly discarded his “grumpy old man” attitude towards her. She loves him, of course. She has also taken to her dog crate well, crying only the first two nights. Of course, it helps that I put a toy full of treats in with her when she goes to bed, she hardly notices that I’ve locked her in.

Friday came along and we added Moxie into the mix. Mox is our friends almost year old Australian Shepard blue heeler mix. She is a doll, and loves Marcus (who doesn’t, really). But she is so helpful because she knows how to play big dog games with Marcus, and is willing to play puppy games with Opal. Really, three dogs is the same amount of work as two! Strange, but true. Right now they are all three laying around me as I write. Good dogs.

Okay, gotta run and work now, just a little pup update! I’m thinking we’ll have her till the end of May at least, get her good and fattened up and some manners, and find her a home. I think we already have several potential candidates among our friends…. I hope so, cause I want to dog sit her when they go out of town!

Marcus as a chicken

Check out Marcus’s chicken costume. I figured he liked his birds so much he could join them in their chickenhood. I tried to upload the pictures last week, but for some reason Blogger didn’t feel like loading them, so here is one for now. Its a pretty good side view pic of the costume.

The chicken costume was actually a child’s costume, I just cut it open and took the arms and legs off, and then sewed the head shut in the front and stuffed it. I then attached the chicken to an orange doggie jumpsuit. It was originally a pumpkin costume, he just didn’t like the pumpkin head piece.

I’ll post more pictures next time I’m on the PC, that’s where the rest of the pictures are stored!
Happy Halloween everybody!

Duckies at three weeks!

Perhaps they are about four weeks old, I just know we’ve had them for about three when I took these pictures. They are getting to big to hold in your lap as they dry themselves off from bath time, so I had to set them on the floor in front of the bathroom heater for the first time. They are funny to watch walk around the house because they tromp, not step. You hear this “wack!” noise every time they set a foot down, and I think its because they aren’t used to walking on hard surfaces, or farther than the length of their dog crate. Its cute. And it give the impression of a much larger duck when you hear them tromping around the house rather than see them. Marcus likes to follow them, but he gets a bit to interested at times and play bows at them, which is a little much for such tiny ducks.

Heres some pictures!

So this first one is at about two weeks, with the ducklings sitting on Brandon after a bath. Look how happy that Marcus is.

Here are the girls exploring. That’s Millie in the Back, and Lou Lou in the front. Yep, that seems to be their nicknames now, even Brandon agrees.

Marcus has got them varmits cornered!
Heres Millie being tough with the Marcus.
How cute are they? They are about 70% fledged, their wing feathers are starting to come in (they are in the very gross pinfeathers stage), their backs and heads are the parts still covered by fluff still, but its slowly growing out. I think in another week they will be covered by grown-up feathers! I think I may have said it before, but ducks really never do go through the ugly stage that chickens do (and that lasts for like two months!). They stay cute, and you get to watch the feathers come in! I feel kinda like a kid doing her middle school science project, but luckily, I don’t have to write a report about it (or do a presentation!)

Okay! I’m gonna do some more work now! Enough with those ducklings!
Maggie