a poultry update!

ok, let's break it down what's up with the poultry in our world:

1) the ducks have grown...a LOT. this picture doesn't have anything to help with scale but i assure you, they're getting big. their feathers are coming in nicely now and they finally sound "like ducks" after all the weeks we've had of peeping.
















here's a short video clip showing one of their favorite pastimes, which is following us (especially Arwyn) around the yard when they're out of the coop. it's a few weeks old at this point so they're a bit small here but you'll get the point.




2) the coop is done! thanks to much hard work by Lorri and her dad (they let me help a little but they did nearly all of it), casa de fowl is finished. the ducks moved out from their basement home to there full-time today. the picture below is from the 90% complete stage, before the door between the two sections and the floor was installed, but you get the idea. i think it came out great!
















3) the chickens have arrived so we're on to phase II! we got three each of two different breeds, Buff Orpingtons and Silver-Laced Wyandottes. they've grown a lot in the last two weeks but they've still got some more to go before they can join the ducks out in the coop.

nana visits & we pick apples

ok, so i got a few weeks behind on the blog again... we had a nice visit with my mom a few weeks ago when she came to CT. Arwyn certainly enjoyed the extra attention :) one thing we did, in keeping with the season, was to go apple picking at a nearby orchard. Arwyn loves apples so of course this was a great fit.
















we also went for a nice hike during the weekend to an area park that has a "fairy village", in which children paint small houses for the forest spirits and leave toys. needless to say Arwyn got a big kick out of that.







































in all we had a great weekend. Arwyn really enjoyed her time with her Nana (and enjoys saying her name) and i think my mom was impressed with just how much the little one has grown up in recent months. i'll finish with a short video clip of my efforts to capture Arwyn drawing with Nana. i failed miserably as i was caught red-handed try to be sneaky, so of course she stopped drawing :)



PS - post #50! wow, didn't think i'd stick with it this long...

PPS - if you hadn't heard by now, yes, i (obviously) cut my hair. time for a change, right?

she loves pumpkins

she loves pumpkins
Originally uploaded by topoisomerase

just a picture from last weekend's pumpkin finding expedition.

sporting her pink vest

...and a blue popsicle stain on her head.

sporting her pink vest
Originally uploaded by topoisomerase

a look back in time...

...well, about a year ago at least. i've been organizing all of our (THOUSANDS) of pictures lately using google's picasa, which i love. anyhow, i got to October 2006, and was amazed as usual thinking about how much this little peanut has changed over the past year. a handy feature of picasa is that you can post to blogger blogs from inside the software, so here we are. if you hadn't guessed, this gem is from Arwyn's first Halloween.

and yes, we have this year's costume ready to go. stay tuned!

the nutty professor

not much to say here, just a few cute pics of Arwyn trying on some gag glasses (which she calls "grokkies") that she got at a friend's birthday party. that hat's pretty cute too, eh? she's reasonably obsessed with pumpkins of late ('tis the season after all), so thankfully it's easy to get her to wear a much-needed hat, given the cold weather we've been experiencing.

phase I - ducks

if i've not mentioned it before, Lorri's latest undertaking is raising some ducks and chickens. last thursday we received the first shipment, which contained our three female Rouen (basically giant mallard) ducklings as well as three female Pekins for our friends. this first clip is from the evening of the day they arrived, in which you can get a look at the black (ours) and yellow (our friends') ducklings. pretty cute, eh?




as you can imagine, Arwyn is really into the ducks. when i came home from work the day they arrived, she just kept repeating "baby ducks" - which is super cute, and also a great example of how she's stringing together words these days, which is cool to see (and you'll get a sampling of that towards the end of this clip). of course her interactions with the ducklings have to be quite supervised, but generally she understands that she has to be very gentle with them.




stay tuned for updates on phase II - chickens. you'll have to wait a little while as i don't think they'll arrive until the end of the month...

PS - next time i'll post some pictures of the coop that Lorri and her dad have been building. the framework is nearly complete and it looks great!