Duck Due Date

Today the ducklings are due to hatch. We have heard no peeping. I won’t be alarmed until tomorrow. The last I candled them was a week ago, and there was still life. We’d be glad to have some hatch, but so far there is no sign of movement. The children are a bit anxious about it. When we were doing breakfast dishes, Abbey and Dane were praying out loud that God would let them hatch.

Steph had set out some milk Saturday in a covered container so it would sour. She wanted to make cottage cheese from it, but it never did set curds. I heated it up this morning, then it made some curds, but very little. I wonder if it’s not too cool in the house for it to sour. The mornings are in the low 40’s now, meaning the house stays in the 60’s.

Steph is still planning to make the curds into cottage cheese. She took the whey from that batch and is making it into ricotta, hopefully. I made another batch of yogurt and let it culture in the oven overnight this time. It turned out beautifully again. We have space in our freezer, so I’m thinking of freezing some batches of yogurt to have some to sell in market once it opens up again.

I did not mention yesterday that the combis seem to be running again. I’m not sure how they’re getting by with it, considering the quarantine measures, but they are running pretty regularly now. The next time I run into town, I may try to catch a combi and see how that goes.

I also did not mention that the very reason I went to town yesterday–to buy nipples for the kids–was forgotten. Steph sent me quite a list of things to get, and I imprudently did not write down the one thing I wanted. So it ended up that I got all the things she asked for, and forgot the nipples. Does that make me a good husband? I dunno, but I think it makes me a bad farmer.

We started our last tank of propane yesterday, so I knew I’d need to order more. I had tried recently to call in and ask them to deliver it, but the lady who answered could not understand where I lived, and I could not understand what she was asking me. When Perci came to put out the cows, I asked for his help. He made the call for me and told the lady, “We live in Marquesbamba. You know where it is. Marquesbamba. Past Inquilpata. You know.”

She said okay and hung up. I had my doubts that would work, but less than an hour later the truck showed up! At least now I know how to do it: I simply tell them they know how to find our house, and they will show up.

We’ve had a goodly bit of rain last night, which means the field between here and Lamar’s place is under water most of the way up. I needed to bring the tanks of gas down from there because the truck couldn’t come down to our house in the mud. That meant using the wheelbarrow. I decided to go barefooted in my crocs to slop through the cold water. Dane thought that was about the funnest thing he could think of.

The children had store with Steph last night before bedtime. Everyone did pretty well this week. Anne was the only one with bonus points, but Dane still had more than she did because of his consistency. He’s pretty careful to do all the things on his chore list without reminders. He was able to buy one each of every type of candy, and he told me this several times since. I’m glad they’re doing so well; each week is slightly better than the last.

I’m going out to work on the chicken pen some more now. The chickens still find ways to escape. They are leaving the pen to lay eggs. If we throw them back in, most of them don’t try to get back out if they’d laid. I don’t know why they don’t like the laying boxes in the chicken shed.

A verse to take with you: “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.” (Romans 12:9 NLT)