Well, I've been out since dad was in the hospital with a gall stone attack.  It shook me up since this is his first overnight stay at a hospital.  He's doing better now.

 

One thing I was very impressed with was how quickly I recovered from several lost days in the garden, especially for it being the beginning of the peak of the season.  A better organized garden is very much a boon to the ease of production.

 

Random: Oh, how I wish I had a horticultural degree!!  If I end up working for Pitt, I might just go for this idea.

 

The banana peppers should be turning red any day now.  I had my first cucmber on Sunday, the cabbage is huge and I've frozen any of the leaves that touch the ground or start to collect water in them like a bowl, and had alot of those in salads, too.  I harvested alot of chard today which is doing much better in the shelter of the porch, than in the garden plot I planted it in purposely.  I have a volunteer chard that the seed must have dropped from my hand when I was planting.  In general, the garden is getting to be in full swing.  Also, the newspaper mulch method is working wonderfully everywhere I tried it. 

 

So, there you have it.  I can still keep up, even with a crazy hospital focused weekend.  This is very exciting since this is the first year I ever could claim I was keeping up, at all.  Hooray!

Miss Duck is dually delivered to the Wildlife rehabilitation center so she can continue to be healthy, wild and free.  Now for some notes on the idea my having ducks...

My biggest dilemma right now is personal time and energy resources.  I just don't think I have the stretch to commit to another animal to keep in good conscience.  One of my other concerns is space.  I am on a dime-size lot just outside city limits and just about every inch is committed to the garden.  My location is such that there are bird hawks, raccoons and occasionally foxes, so a fully secured area would be needed for their safety, and there is no room.  If I were to let them roam, they would end up offending the neighbors, surely.  Also, they might not stay since my yard is only a 100 yard flight from the river.  Take a look at what's just outside my front door-

The picture shows a cliff, highway, railroad tracks then river.  This is a sixty foot drop to a row of houses you can't see because of the trees, then another 20 foot drop to the highway and rails.

So, I was reviewing my notes from an earlier batch of research and saw that I had determined to look into the option of raising quail for eggs, mainly because of size and containablilty.  If anyone has any input on that, please drop a line here, and keep in mind that I also have rather bitter winters to contend with in my climate zone.

Here is Miss Duck, signing off!

This has been a very good day.  I got a call back for employment and I start a temp to perm assignment on tuesday.  This assignment is in the field I was trying to enter, so this is very good news.  Splendid!

 

Well, so she's a little rescue duck, and she's hanging out in my bathroom.  The wildlife rescue center is on short hours today, but they said they will help her.  She's probably only about a month old, she's got undeveloped tail feathers, and still has lots of pin feathers showing through.  The rescue center said it sounds like over mating.  The feathers are missing from the back of her head and she's got a bit of a limp, but she doesn't have a pain reaction anywhere on her leg, so maybe she just strained a little too hard.  She'll be hanging out in my bathroom overnight and we will be going on a tour to the wildlife clinic tomorrow.

According to the KDKA radio broadcast I woke up to this morning, Pennsylvania has a waiver in place for not for profit organizations so they don't have to pay property taxes.  At the point when I (forseeably) have reduced my living expenses such that I am no longer holding an outside job, this would be extra incentive for starting a not for profit and making headquarters my home. 

 

Worth keeping in the back of my mind.