Butterflies and Ducks

Thank you so much to Shiloh Prairie Farm for the ever-so-pretty Butterfly Award! I am delighted to have received it, and for the kind comments about my blog. If you haven't visited Shiloh Prairie Farm's blog lately, you really should! She's got some great posts, including one with soap sticks that look like butter!

So, as usual, the rules are to be listed!
1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Award up to ten other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your awardees on their blogs.

Well, I can certainly come up with 10 blogs to award, and here are the first three, in no particular order. If these awardees would like to share the award with others, please feel free to do so, but don't feel obligated! If I wasn't so dead tired right now, I'd do the remaining 7, but instead, I will get to those when I have a little more time and energy.

1. All Things Farm & Fiber (because she did a really cool post about the idea of using opossum fiber to spin, and a very useful post on dying wool, so I enjoy visiting there!)
2. Spinning Yarns from the Farm (because even though we disagree about mice, she always has some interesting thoughts in her posts!)
3. Mapleton Farm (A recent blog discovery for me, and she had a great egg photo in a recent post, but also because she has fabulous sheep pictures. I am very envious of her sheep.)

Well, this weekend we had duckling bath time. The ducklings aren't so "duckling" like any more - in fact, they are distinctly duck-like. They quack like ducks (except for a couple who still make squeaky noises) and they smell like ducks (ugh...) and they paddle about in the bathtub like ducks and they even preen themselves like ducks. So, they're not my ducklings any more - they're my ducks.

As each duck came out of the tub, I did a little rub-down to get them a bit dried off - they still don't repel water quite as well as they should. In general, ducks are displeased with being given a bit of a rubdown, and are very vocal about their displeasure. My ears start ringing with the memory of it. Of course, I also got very wet and disheveled looking from the whole experience, but that's what you've got to expect when you've got ducks in your basement!

The black and white ducks (2 of them) intrigue me. At first I thought they might be Swedish Blue ducks based on a couple of others' suggestions, but now I am not sure. They don't appear to have any blue feathering and in fact one of them has some brown around its head. Any duck experts care to make a proclamation about this duck breed?!
I just love to watch them preening after the bath - they can do things with their neck that are quite remarkable - I wish I were that flexible!

By the way, Tulip, Petunia and Buttercup are all doing very well and enjoying their new farmyard friends. Probably I'll have time for pictures and an update on them this weekend!