Author: Veronica

  • Ducklings!

    On Sunday, we had ducklings hatch.

    On Monday, the mother duck left the nest long enough for me to photograph and count the babies.

    However, after 3 minutes moving ducklings and counting heads, I was no closer to an exact number.

    We have twelve. Or thirteen. I can’t quite tell, because of all the sitting on each other, hiding under their siblings and wiggling to the bottom of the pile they were doing. I can tell you they are very cute and very soft.

    I did only find 2 rotten eggs though and we started with 15 (16, but she broke one during week 3), so thirteen is a possibility.

    12 (or 13) ducklings out of 15 eggs is a brilliant success rate. I am thrilled.

    Update: We have thirteen. My god it’s a lot of ducklings.

    More gratuitous photos, because surely there is no such thing as too many duckling photos?

    Ducklings Day 3

    All thirteen of them

    Ducklings Day 3

    Ducklings Day 3

    Ducklings Day 3

    Ducklings Day 3

  • Mickey and the Great Outdoors

    This post sponsored by Nuffnang

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    Amy: ‘Mummy! What is it? What is it?! What was in the mail?’

    Me: ‘It’s a DVD.’

    Amy: ‘YAY! A DVD!’

    ***

    Amy was thrilled, as always when a DVD arrived in the mail. And like always, she insisted we watch it as soon as possible. I’m a big meanie however and am trying to limit the TV, so I waited until I was in need of a break.

    She’s been tough to live with lately, bouncing off the walls, screeching, turning the volume up on everything and racing around like a mad woman, so after a major meltdown I was very ready for an hours peace while she snuggled on the couch with her brother watching Mickey and the Great Outdoors.

    A tearstained face and a horse backpack to cuddle, coupled with the DVD seemed to help.

    This time, Mickey and his mates head to the great outdoors and practise their teamwork solving problems, as they travel around the countryside.

    The Mickey DVD was great for Amy. It held her attention and if the amount of times she’s asked to watch it since are anything to go by, it’s quickly becoming one of her favourites. I’d like to say she enjoys the problem solving, but with Amy, I’m never sure how much of it she’s taking in. She definitely enjoys shouting along with the characters and anything that gives me 10 minutes peace is a good thing in my opinion.

    And Isaac is always a fan.

  • Maisy settles in.

    We’ve had Maisy for a little while now and she’s settling in beautifully.

    To be honest, I expected a dog from the dogs home would have more undesirable habits than she does, but really, we’ve not run up against anything yet. Not anything major. She needed some house training, either she’d never been taught, or she’d regressed living in the concrete pens.

    We’re slowly picking up on things that may have happened in her last home. Like, arms being waved around freak her out and she hides under our bed until we coax her out. Under our bed isn’t a big deal, as that’s where she’s sleeping and where she disappears to when the kids are being overwhelming. It’s her space.

    If Nathan yells, or gets shitty, she gets really anxious. Shaking and hiding in my front kind of anxious, or disappearing under the bed again. Whereas if I yell, no response. Luckily Nathan is a giant softy, and while he will yell at Amy, or stomp around the house grumpily, he very rarely growls at the animals.

    We think there is a possibility wherever she was before had a guy who yelled a lot and possibly hit her, just from her reaction to Nathan occasionally. Goodness knows if we’re yelling at each other (we yell a lot, usually ending with us both in giggles) she takes my side. Right before she hides. Heh.

    She is so snuggly and does her best to be as close to someone as possible. If I’m reading, she’ll either sneak up next to me and put her head in my lap, or failing that, lay on the floor as close to me as possible.

    She’s a little spoiled.

    She finally chases a ball, but only inside and only if we throw it carefully. A huge step up from the fear of balls being thrown that she had when she first came home.

    She adores the kids. ADORES them. She’s learning that Isaac hates being licked, so she just lays as close to him as possible. She’s still very licky, but she doesn’t like Isaac screeching ‘NO!’ at her very much. She runs around like a maniac with Amy outside, Amy giggling away, before darting in for a pat and taking off again. She has full access to the small yard, but the big yard is lead-only at this point. She is much too interested in my poultry to be allowed out there alone.

    The cats are still rather unimpressed, but they’re getting used to each other.

    Training has, so far been rather simple. She is anxious to please and once she knows what I want, she remembers for next time and is so willing.

    She follows me everywhere, including to the shower and toilet, sticking as close to my ankles as possible. Which is interesting. I’ve tripped over her plenty and spend a lot of time growling ‘for fucks sake, MOVE’.

    I’m thrilled though. She is the perfect dog for us and every day cements her that little bit further into the family. I can’t quite remember what it was like before her.

    And she is just SO GRATEFUL to be here. You can see it in her eyes.

    Border Collie and toddler

    Border Collie

  • My office, let me show you it.

    Continuing on my theme, let’s have a sticky beak at my office.

    Okay, so office is a little bit deceptive. It’s actually the dining room, where I’ve got my desk and bookshelves on the opposite side to the dining table. It’s all open plan, so from where I sit at my computer, I can see the loungeroom and kitchen. This doesn’t prevent Amy getting into mischief while I work however.

    My desk – with wordpress open on the screen, I wasn’t *meant* to overexpose it. You can see how messy it is, all the bills end up here, along with books and other bits and pieces. The house is always clean, but it’s cluttered and untidy. Maybe because it’s a home with people living in it, not a show home. Tissues sitting on my speaker because when the kids run around, I start sneezing. A webcam/mic for Skype, books on top of my computer tower [Elizabeth Knox: The Invisible Road, A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia, and Isabel Allende: My Remembered Country, there is also I Am Ozzy hidden next to my computer tower] and my notebook next to my keyboard.

    Further over we have the rest of the first bookshelf, another tall one from Nan’s house and a TV without a set top box, that Isaac uses to climb on and pull all the books out of the shelves. FUN.

    Behind me we have MORE bookshelves! (surprised yet? there is also another one in Isaac’s bedroom, full to the brim). Missing are my Robin Hobb books (see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo leaning over dangerously?) because they’re at Mums. Isaac has also been at work pulling out books from the bottom right.

    The dining room is falling apart a little. This is the room that had the indoor pond and we’ve not concreted the floor yet. The walls are warped. Quite warped.

    The long term plan is to concrete the floor and put up plaster on the walls so we can repaint. It might take a while while we get the money together though. Why do things always come down to money and how difficult it is to work around a 4yo and a 19mth old?

    Sigh.

    Until then, I’m fairly happy. Simply having a DESK is a step up, up until a few months ago, I did all my work on my lap, on a rather slow laptop.

    Ahhh, those were the days.

    Nowadays, I even have a heater, right next to me. Luxury, right?

    So there. A little peek into my hideously messy office. Hehe.

  • How to make blogging easier.

    I suffer from blank page syndrome. As soon as I sit in front of the computer, I forget everything I was going to write about. The blinking cursor appears to mock me, until I click away and do something else. 20 minutes later, as I’m washing dishes/reading a book/changing nappies I’ll be struck with a brilliant idea for a post! and then it takes me 20 minutes to get near the computer again, at which point I’ve forgotten it again.

    Which meant that most of my blog posts were done on the fly, just jotting down whatever was in my head.

    It worked and it didn’t work badly, but I was forgetting so many things.

    So I bought a notebook. I know! Insanely simple. You probably all do this already.

    It’s nothing special, but of an evening, in the 10 minutes before I go to sleep, I try to jot down as many post ideas as possible. Things I want to write about, things I think you’d be interested in reading about, just general stuff.

    And then the next day, when I’ve got time, I sit down with the book and remind myself what I was planning on blogging about.

    It’s meant that I’ve been able to write and then schedule blog posts, which in turn takes the ‘I MUST POST’ stress off me and means I actually remember to blog things. Which is kind of extraordinary for someone as disorganised as I am.

    I’ve been blogging for three years now, why didn’t I think of this sooner? I’m a bit of an idiot sometimes.

    Plus, having posts scheduled means that they go up at the same time, all the time, rather than one post being published at 7am and another at almost midnight. I can write when I want and everything seems to fall together better.

    Also, it seems that writing is like sex. The more you do it, the more you want to and the better you get. So I’m also writing more, even if I’m not posting more.

    What do you do to stop blog fatigue and come up with post ideas? Do you plan your posts ahead, or do you write them on the fly, when inspiration strikes you?

    (Not saying one is better than the other, just saying that planning and scheduling ahead seems to be working better for me than writing on the fly. Of course, it takes some work to get ahead, I actually used some reposts and some guest posts to get myself ahead and scheduling. So you know, feel free to steal my idea.)