Decided I ought to update some shots of the littlest one (yes Lisa, just for you!) 
Being cute on my bed.
And with Grandad.
With Mommy in the jungle-garden.
And watching tv with Uncle Rob.
Oh - and he weighed in at 16lb 11oz today at not quite 18 weeks old. Little porker!
You know, my life just gets weirder and weirder.
There I was, hoofing around like a thing possessed trying to feed the girls in that insanely small gap between getting home from school and getting back out again to take Myf to Brownies, when there’s a knock on the door. Puzzled, with RJ slung along my forearm and Piglet’s pigtail in the other, I head for the door, slingshot small female up the stairs with orders to wash the half inch thick layer of ketchup off her face, grabb the door handle, shout at Tea to find her shoes and open it as RJ burps a mouthful of milk down the front of my trousers, to be confronted with a man I don’t recognise, who’s smiling sheepishly at me and holding his hands cupped one atop the other in front of him.
“Hi,” says he. “Jane over the road says you keep chickens.”
I peer closely at his hands.
“That’s not a chicken.”
“No. I found it under my car and I’ve been asking around and everyone says bring it over to you as you’ll know what to do with it, so, would you mind…?” He leaves the question hanging in the air and holds his cupped hands out towards me.
Two black beady eyes surrounded by olive-brown and yellow down peer out at me over a small, black bill through a gap in the man’s hands.
“You found a duckling under your car?”
“It was just bumbling around and I couldn’t see its mother or anything. Would you mind looking after it?”
Can things get any odder? I think.
“Sure. Let me put the baby down.” I plonk RJ into his car seat, which, thankfully, he thinks is funny at that point and take the duckling off the stranger. “Where do you live?”
“On the main road.” He told me the house number. Goodness knows how he ended up a few hundred yards up my street from the main road, but it appears he was knocking door to door asking folks what to do with the bird.
So, there I was, with about 30 seconds to get in the car for the seven minute drive to Brownies, with a ketchup-smeared small person cooing down the stairs, a not-quite-so-small shoeless person going crackers ‘wannaseeitwannaholditwannatakeittoschool’ and the biggest small person wanting to give it some bizarre name whilst the baby decides he’s had enough of the car seat and demands to be picked up, like NOW.
Grab plastic box, add handful of guinea pig’s hay, drop in duckling, put cooling rack on top to contain said bird. Strap complaining baby into seat, wipe Piglet’s face with a baby wipe, throw shoe at Tea and send Myf out to truck with keys to open the doors.
Back in house 20 minutes later, having apologised to Brown Owl for being nearly 10 mintes late, to find the box empty. With the rack still on top. Find duckling sat on cooker top where it’s nice and warm. Scoop bird back into box. Find much bigger, deeper box. Put box on counter, input hay, bird, jamjar lid of water, put rack from mini-greenhouse staging on top, get reading lamp and point light down into box to keep warm. Take three remaining offspring into living room to sit and read nice relaxing book.
3/4 of the way through book, hear loud ‘peep peep peep’ that definitely wasn’t in the kitchen.
Dump book and baby on floor with two smallest girls, go into kitchen and find box empty. With lid still on. Resolve to call bird ‘Houdini’ if it hasn’t taken up residence inside the dog.
Recall seeing dog by playroom french windows en route to kitchen. Retrace steps and find dog looking at small bird with perplexed expression. Yeah, me too dog. How the bloody hell did that get off the counter and into the play room without breaking its neck or getting eaten? 15 yards, maybe? Through the obstacle course that is the playroom.
Scoop up Houdini Duck and put back in box. Put large book on top of wire rack. Watch in amazement as duck does a damn good impression of Zebedee and realise that duck is small enough to fit through gaps in wire rack if it aims right.
Put cake cooling rack, large book and a folded newspaper onto wire rack, leaving sufficient space for lamp.
James arrives home from work, goes back out to collect Myf, returns and puts girls to bed. I put RJ to bed. We sit down to eat dinner and listen to duck banging its head against rack as it leaps around box trying to escape. Put larger, deeper lid of water into cage, along with some mashed up egg yolk and some of the chooks layers mash. Duck spends happy few minutes throwing water all over the box.
It’s now quiet and not leaping around like a frog on a hotplate. I’ve been on several poultry forums (there are some strange people out there!!) and have decided it is about a week old and if it survives the next day or so, we’ll have a pet duck. Oh well, at least they like slugs.
So sign here: Petition for the sale of cloth nappies on eBay
Can you believe they’ve banned the (re)sale of second hand cloth nappies? I bid on some lovely Little Ewe cotton squares, and then found the listing was pulled! Not impressed, as I really covet those particular terry nappies. Then I found the above petition.
Come on blogland - spread it around
There’s so much nonsense on YouTube that I rarely bother following links to things on it - but this is one I’m real glad I did.
