Well the hubby and I took off to the mountains for the weekend. We went to the WV Science Teachers Conference at Snowshoe Mountain resort. I have good news and bad news to report.
Good news: the leaves were wonderful, such a full spectrum of color (for leaves that is - I didn't actually see any blue leaves). We had a very nice and cozy studio condo on the top floor of the lodge on top of the mountain, so we saw some awesome mountain views.
The speakers at the grand banquet Sat. night were a very interesting couple that photograph undersea wildlife and do sponge research for cancer. They had the most wonderful slide show and such interesting facts about fish, crabs, seahorses, reefs, etc. The Tackets live in WV when they are not spending 3-6 mos. a year in Indonesia.
This morning before leaving Pocahontas County, we stopped and picked up four ducks from the birdman of Dunmore. This is the same guy we got our other ducks from. He has over 150 ducks and probably 100 turkeys and chickens. He keeps them penned up in a building at night (males in one room, females in another). We were there at 8:30 this morning so we were able to witness the morning release of the ducks. I took photos of this hilarious event. He stands to the side and opens the door, and out pours this tremendous river of ducks, some flying out, but most walking and quacking and tossing feathers in all directions. Then he moved over to the other room and the same thing repeated itself. Then as all the ducks search for their mates and greet each other, there's so much noise and splashing. Quite a show.
Our ducks were very curious about the new additions when we got them home. Our male, Rudy, immediately (and I mean within seconds)had to mount one of the new females to prove his manhood. Last I checked on them they were all feeding in the algae. Hopefully, they'll all get along.
Bad News: I had gotten an e-mail from my old neighbor in Green Bank (not far from Snowshoe) saying she thought she had found my sheep (the one I raised from a baby). The last time I had been over that way I looked three times for my sheep and couldn't find her. This is a sheep that I had for two years before I moved to this area and turned her out to pasture when she was a couple of months old. I still visited her two or three times a day until I moved away, then visited her whenever we were in that part of the state. She usually came running when I called her name and rubbed against my leg and begged to be petted and hugged. Well, after receiving that e-mail, I was a little excited, but still cautious. I had already assumed she had died and greived my loss. But I still thought while the hubby is in conference sessions, I will drive the 20 minutes over to the old farm with a loaf a bread in hand and go look for my "Little Lamb". I searched everywhere and found a very friendly sheep with the remnants of a tag in her ear (like my sheep had) but it wasn't my Little Lamb. I ended up feeding half the loaf to her and then just gave up. I went up on the hill where they graze in the spring and found the remains of a sheep in some tall grass. I had to wonder if that was her. I couldn't find a yellow ear tag, but thought it might be hidden in the grass, as most of the bones were deeply hidden. I was only able to find the backbone and ribs because the skull was so visible. There was still some flesh and the other bones weren't dry like very old bones. That tells me whichever sheep it was, it probably died in early summer (about the time my sheep came up missing). I said a little good-bye to her and to that valley. Because now that she's gone, I really have no reason to drive up that road anymore.
Other bad news: Do you remember the little deer I had been telling you about? The one I had been seeing in someone's yard close to the highway for the past 4 weeks or so. Well, today we saw a dead deer right in front of that yard and it was about the size of that little deer. So I'm guessing it was hit over the weekend while we were gone. I'm not surprised, just sad.
Other news: Our geese are still hanging out every day. They were here when we pulled in our drive way this afternoon. Don't know if that's good or bad news. We haven't been feeding them - we don't want to discourage them from migrating.
Sorry so long, just catching you up on my weekend.
