Duckling in Dog Bowl.

Why are the ducklings in an old plastic dog bowl?

Because it had water in it, of course.


Feather Head in the bowl, Wing Flap in
foreground, Blue Moon in back.


Vladimir in the bowl with Blue Moon's head showing.


Blue Moon.

The same day as the ducklings were kind enough to be all cuteness and pose for me in the water bowl, we let the geese into the same area with them.

The ducklings general response to the hulking huge geese coming near them was, "RUN!!!!"

It seemed like a healthy reaction to me.


Wobbles checking out the babies on their first day meeting.

By the second day, the ducklings were a little calmer about the whole thing, and Vladimir may have even tried to taste Wobbles' wing feather. It's hard to see in the video S took, but at one point Wobbles jumps forward as if startled, and Vladimir is right near by with her mouth open. Vladimir is the most adventurous when it comes to trying to figure out what counts as food and what doesn't, so I wouldn't put it past her trying to take on a goose 10 times her size - especially if it were tasty.

I think I just remembered why I'm doing this.

This whole livejournal experiment (seems I've been at this a little over four years now) started as a way to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone and do more. I wanted to do things, and engage in things, even if they were a little (or a lot) scary or a little hard for me, so I could better help my children engage in things and do more things.

But that's not really what this whole thing turned out to be.

When I was younger, I'd often wanted to keep a written diary. Or even a collection of my drawings in a drawing journal. This had never come together, because I've always been too picky about what ends up in such a permanent format.

Plus, I make lots of errors when writing by hand, sometimes just writing down the wrong letter or word. And I like to futz. Go back and edit, change the phrasing here and there. And it practically kills me to try to write something from beginning to end in order. I'm far more often able to write parts and pieces, then fit them all together.

I don't think in a straight line.

Typing (even though I'm atrociously slow at it), and spell check, and easy editing (cut and paste!*) have made me a much better writer.

So this is my diary (or at least the closest I'll ever get to writing one).

I need to write these for me. So when I go back and read the archives I can remember things like this and get all weepy from time to time. Because the things my kids do fall out of my head. So with livejournal I can catch a few and keep them from getting away.

*I read in a comments somewhere, some guy complaining that people were morons for saying cut and paste, because it is copy and paste. The thing is, I cut and paste flipping all the time (yes, yes with the occasional copy when I raid someone else's ideas, but mostly I just struggle with my own).