First Day of Break

This evening's sunset

I'm zapped.  This whole past week was completely taken over by our school's science fair.  Today was the first day of my week-long February break and I did...pretty much nothing.  Just lounged around the house drinking tea, doing crossword puzzles, cuddling the cats, catching up on blog reading and napping.  I did place an order for some weaving yarn -- but, if it had somehow miraculously arrived today, I don't think I'd have the pep to even open the box, much less begin a project.  When it gets like this, it takes a few days to get my other, non-teacher self back into the picture.  Thank God for next week's break.






Last week's unchronicled Frogpond highlights included the following:

The hens have begun laying again and are now going full-bore.  We're back to 8-10 large golden-yolked eggs a day.  Praise chickens!

Sending out the three Muscovies to be processed proved to be a wise choice.  It only took about 45 minutes for the ducks to be slaughtered, plucked, cleaned and handed back to Bruce.  Of the three, Mama got one, we put one in the freezer and the last became roast duck and then duck soup.

A bird coming back looking like this...

...was transformed into this.  The second time around, our roast duck came out more tender than our first attempt.  However, the best dish came from the pot of duck vegetable soup that I prepared the next day from the remains of this roast.  I made it exactly like I would a chicken soup, but the flavor of the duck was much richer and more flavorful.  Seasoned with herbs from the garden and with egg drop dumplings, it developed into a fabulous soup


To my great relief, I'm over almost all of my uncomfortable feelings about eating an animal I've cared for.  Logic finally won over emotion (nothing like developing a little Vulcan fortitude).  The fact that the duck tasted so delicious no doubt helped with this.  So maybe it was that gluttony finally won out over squeamishness.  However it may have happened, a milestone has been passed.