Saturday, August 23, 2008

of chickens and duck

Among the many animals residing on our acreage, there are two that are quite interesting. Their names are Quack and Peep. Their species are chicken and duck. And of course, Quack is the chicken and Peep is the duck. It just had to be that way.

Anyway, this is the story of Quack, Peep, and their inseparable comradeship(sort of).

We received Quack and Peep together, along with one other duck, from one of my cousins. The chicken (a rooster) was pretty beat up looking, but the baby ducks were so cute! The reason my cousin brought them over was because he could not keep them in his room any longer. (Ick...)
For the first night i constucted a makeshift pen for them in our shed. They only spent one night in it, and then they got let out into the wild unknown.
After they were let out they spent most of their time under our shed. I would get down on my stomach and look under the shed a couple times a day. Only a few days (maybe it was only one or two) one of the ducks went missing. My dad found it a few days later in the yard. He didn't make it. But the other two were fine.
After a while, the remaining birds, Quack and Peep, started to wander around with the six other chicken chicks that we had. Peep would sometimes run around my grandmother's house squaking his head off, trying to find the other chickens. It was a riot!
Anyhow, time has gone on, and Quack and Peep sure have grown!! Quack is so big, I can hardly pick him up. One day, my brother asked my dad if chickens could fly. "Sure, just not very well," my dad replied. For an example, my dad caught Quack and threw him up into the air.
Now, we all know that chickens can't nessecarily fly, but they can flap their wings to break their fall. Not Quack. He fell to the ground like a bag of rocks. He didn't even to try to flap his wings. My dad said that he just rolled to his side, laid there for a second, and then limped away.
The only damage he seemed to suffer was a slight waddle, which is okay, because now he and Peep have something in common. :-)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Ready for Autumn?

Well, I don't know about you but I am excited that school is stsarting up again. True, there will be some things I miss about it but I would like to get back into a routine. You know how at the beginning of each season you get so excited and say, "I just can't wait! Summer is my favorite time of year!" and it is... for a while. Then, you see a picture of snow, or a video of someone jumping into a big pile of leaves and you think " I wish summer would just hurry up and get over with!". Well, there is our human nature showing through. We just aren't satified with the gifts God has given us at the time. We will always want something different, something new, something that we think will be better. Anyhow, maybe we need to take the time to enjoy the 'present', the aforesaid gift, that God has given us. We must learn to discover the beauty of creation in all seasons; even if we are hot and sweaty, or chilled and muddy. God has done so much for us! Cherish it!