Juvenile DUCKlinquents

Lately I've been letting my ducks have complete freedom around the 2 acre pen along with the chickens and goats.  I figured "why pen them up in the barn at night when everybody else is free range 24-7?"  So the ducks are now enjoying barnyard freedom. 
At first they would waddle into the barn right at sundown and wait patiently by their pen for me to lock them up for the night.  When I consistently didn't show up, they would come to the barn's entrance and quack loudly at the house as if to ask, "Where are you, you're late!!" 
Eventually they found out that I didn't enforce their curfew anymore, and so the partying began! 
They would stay out far past sundown, chase the chickens around, poop in the goat's food, make all the water buckets muddy, taunt the dogs by running up and down their fence line just out of reach, etc...
 Now they've taken up the habit of getting up early in the morning, walking quietly to the fence by the cars and waiting for me to come out of the house.  I've dropped my book bag more times then I care to admit when they suddenly start quacking loudly as I reach my car. 
They enjoy it I'm sure (since they make a funny noise that sounds like chuckling), seeing me get all flustered as I pick up my bag and check to see if I dropped it in mud. 
Pretty soon I'll be the one laughing when the weather gets too cold for them to pull their little pranks. 

Monday

“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens.”

Edgar Allan Poe opens up The Fall of the House of Usher in a way that is strikingly appropriate of this particular Monday morning.

Gloomy, dark, cold, and wet. 

As Garfield would say, “I hate Mondays.”

Again Poe puts it quite appropriately:   “I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building [in this case the College], a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.” 

Oh how I wish I could have slept in this morning!

If the sun would grant the earth with but a whisper of sunshine, it would give me hope for a finer day.

Nap time

Cats never cease to make me smile, this was one lazy afternoon when all the cats (minus Tommy) decided to pile on the chair for a nap.

On a side note...does anyone else love that warm fuzzy smell of sleeping cat?  It makes me want to pick them up and rub my face on their soft bellies.  Recently though I found out it's not a good idea to do that to crotchety old cats with five out of six ends that are pointy.

Coffee

Does anybody drink coffee anymore?  I’m talking about REAL coffee, as in straight black with nothing added to its rich goodness.  I go to coffee shops and have the hardest time locating “just” coffee on the menu, and even when I do, the person behind the counter stares at me like I’ve just grown another appendage when I order it.  What happened to the good old days, when you simply ordered coffee (and if you wanted anything added to it you asked).  Now I say “I’d like coffee please,” and they assume I mean espresso (which I don’t), or ask me what kind of coffee I mean, “We have Lattes, Breves, Americanos, Mochas, ecc… ” Coffee - is just water steeped in coffee granules for a few minutes, and that is what I really want.  No, to find something that will keep me awake at school, I have to sort through an exasperatingly long list of coffee drinks that are prepared in innumerous ways, all of which have cryptic names linked to the ratio of coffee/milk/flavor/other.  Honestly, I haven’t a clue as to what my coffee beverage is going to taste like!   

Wikipedia lists the different types of coffee drinks, and mind you, this is only the short list as each and every coffee house has its own array of Specials and House Blends.  I will admit to enjoying a Caramel Macchiato or an Almond Latte now and again, but this list is ridiculous!                                        

  Affogato, Black Eye, Black Tie, Breve, Caffè Americano, Café au lait, Café Bombón, Caffè latte, Cafe Medici, Café mélange, Coffee milk, Cafe mocha, Cafe Zorro, Ca phe sua da, Cappuccino, Caramel Machiatto, Chai Latte, Chocolate Dalmatian, Cinnamon Spice Mocha, Cortado, Decaf, Dirty Chai, Eggnog Latte, Eiskaffee, Espresso Romano, Flat white, Frappuccino, Galão, Guillermo, Gingerbread Latte, Greek frappé coffee, Green Eye, Half-caf, Iced coffee, Indian filter coffee, Instant coffee, Irish Coffee, Kopi susu, Liqueur coffee, Macchiato, Mary Turner Coffee, Mocha, Mazagran, Mochasippi, Pumpkin Spice Latte, Pocillo, Raspberry Mocha, Red Eye, Red Tie, Red Tux, Skinny Latte, Soy Latte, Torpedo, Triple C's, Turkish coffee, Vienna coffee, White Chocolate Mocha, Yuanyang, Zebra Mocha

I did it!

I passed my Statistics and Sociology tests!  Wooooooo!!!!
Huge sigh of relief.
Truthfully I hardly studied for either of them; my weekend mostly consisted of sleeping, taking care of a wounded horse, driving people to/from Great Falls and a whole boatload of chores.
Dear Lord, please let me have done well on the Computer test!  Can't wait to get those results back =)

Cold

I wake up at 6 am to get ready for school.

I drink lots of coffee (if I have time).

I usually don’t eat breakfast.

I’m outside scraping the ice off my windshield at 20 after.

I’m driving down the highway shivering because the heater doesn’t kick in for a while.

I run into the college cold and hungry expecting the interior to be much warmer than the outside.

I slowly turn into a block of ice INSIDE a building that should NOT have the air-conditioning on when it is 45° outside!!

The guy controlling the thermostat is undoubtedly cackling evilly to himself somewhere.

A sad day

My flock of ducks has decreased in size this week.

Jemima and Beatrix, my two Pekin females were put on the menu this Tuesday.

Starting from day one I was warned not to become emotionally attached to my ducks due to the fact that they are meat birds and all share the same fate of a chopping block and the roasting pan.

Why did I not head that warning?

As I drove home from school that night, I thought about all the time I'd spent raising these ducks from days old little yellow fluff balls to beautiful, intelligent and funny ducks practically bursting with personality.

At home as my family was relating all the nitty-gritty details of butchering I tried my hardest to keep my lunch from becoming part of the visible world again. I wept as I entered the kitchen to find my pets in the sink and ready for cooking.

What had I done?

I flat out refused to cook them when the suggestion came up. I was going to do homework, go for a jog, anything to distract myself from the crushing reality that I had allowed my "children" to be murdered.

Am I a terrible person for admitting that I rather enjoy eating roast duck? I love it actually. Roast duck is positively scrumptious! When you walk into a house and the first thing that assaults your senses is the smell of mouthwatering roast duck, you can't help but forget that the food on your plate was recently a living and breathing creature. I am guilty of this charge.

Jemima, Beatrix, you are sorely missed, but greatly appreciated!

20 Days

20 days of freedom left.

17 days of work.

14 days of teaching.

5 days till my brothers leave.

3 more days of Sunday break.

1 day that I'm enjoying now.

.

Dear God, Thank you for this glorious day!

Help me to take life one day at a time.

When problems come my way,

remind me that YOU are in control!

For "we know that God causes all things to work together

for good to those who love God,

to those who are called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28

Books

This is classic me, doing weird things to make myself laugh  =)

Yes, I did in fact buy books.  I spent over $500.00 on books. 

 I now fully comprehend the term "starving college student."

Anybody want to guess how much time I spent making this video?

Day One

Greetings fellow earthlings!  I hear-by welcome you to my humble blog. 

I have nothing profound to say. 

Nothing remarkable to tell you. 

Nothing phenomenal to relate. 

Nothing sensational to converse about. 

 Am I repetitive?  Yes, but only when I want to reiterate that I am simply blogging about my simple life.  Simply said: I'm just gonna have fun with this.

So please sit back, drink some coffee and I hope you enjoy these little snippets of my life.

Read on dear reader, read on.