Thursday Morning Miscellany

• I broke my washer last Friday.

There is a 3" slit in the gasket 

I had an underwire bra go amok and slash a huge hole in the door gasket. It's a freak accident that is going to cost me $250 and  a week and a half without a functioning washer. In the meantime, what am I going to do about our laundry? 

I decided to wash it all by hand. 

I'm spending lots of time here

I've got detergent, plenty of hot running water, and even a dryer. I thought that there was no reason why I shouldn't be able to take care of it. Well, several days in, it's apparent that washing laundry for six people by hand is very tedious. I need to invest in a few simple tools that will make the job easier should I have to wash laundry by hand in the future. Something to agitate the laundry would be nice, and something else that would wring out water is essential. My laundry remains so wet after I wash it that it takes forever to dry. I just keep telling myself that this is an excellent learning opportunity and I'm counting down the days until my washer is fixed. 

• We finished our chicken moat expansion. 

The fencing now encompasses the new duck house area and connects all the poultry
together in a circuit around the garden

I'm glad to be done with construction for a while. We're taking a brief breather and catching up on backed up garden chores. In a couple of weeks we'll have to address our turkey housing issues. 

• My Ancona duck eggs are due to hatch today. When I woke up this morning, two of my eggs had pips (little holes in the shell). Thirteen of the 15 eggs made it to the end of the incubation period. I hope that I get a wide variety of colors and patterning and that most of them are girls. That's not too much to ask for, right? I found homes for any extra birds that should hatch. I should admit that things are moving slow enough at this point that I hope I get any ducks to hatch. 

Come on and hatch, little ducklings!