Humming Bird Moth

Right before setting our butterflies free Tayler spotted this moth. I had my camera handy so I took some pictures, then looked it up at night. Josh said it is a hummingbird and I thought no its to small, but I think it is a hummingbird moth. I had run across the before on the net looking at moths and caterpillars.

Baby Ducks and Geese Arrive

Our ducks arrived the morning of Joshua's' fourth birthday! Here they are getting settled.

All tuckered out.

Can you count them?

All piled up.

All fourteen, what wait a minute there are 15 and we ordered 14. We have a surprise! We never counted them, and a couple of days later while taking individual pictures Josh spotted a surprise! We had an extra. Read below to find out which one...

And here it is we have an extra
Welsh Harlequin, the sex is a surprise as we had all of ours sexed(they come with color coded leg bands) and this one was band-less. So we have another surprise waiting to see if we have male or female.

I love how I caught the water drip from its beak in this one!

Adults

Buff Orpington Ducks
Adults Below

Khaki Campbell

Adult Drake

Flip, Flop,and Flap our
Cayuga
Adult Below

Ginger(female), and Garlic(male) our
Buff Geese

Adult
Why so many ducks and why geese you might ask? Well we have a pond about 1 1/2 acres in size. We have always enjoyed seeing the wild ducks that have come through but were never able to keep any of our own due to the dogs. Our yard now has an electric fence to keep the dogs away and we have done our best to train them these are pets and not food.(been successful so far!) We also have a very aggressive weed growing along the banks possibly called "duck weed" looks like ivy that grows in water. We went to our local "farm store" to find a poison to kill it. Upon talking to one of their workers he tells us that the only thing they know of to kill this is $700 a quart! And he had the same problem except for his pond was completely taken over by it. He purchased a dozen ducks and they had it gone in a month. So we ended up getting the 2 Pekin Ducks, after being at the pond only a week they had taken care of a three foot span! Until one of our many predators needed dinner. :( We began thinking the two WHITE ducks didn't have much of a chance being so bright and alone. Maybe safety in numbers we thought. And geese are known to notice things out of the ordinary making them more protective. I was advised that you should also get more than you think you want because losses happen. Then you really should have 1 male per 3 females. In the end we have 18 ducks,and 12 chickens making it an even 30 birds! WOW! This is our summer project as I call it. It is a lot of work but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything nor would the kids. We have enjoyed it as a family and everyone even quests have even pitched in to help out!
We purchased 1 drake per 2 females in the ducks, and 1 gander/1 goose in the geese category. I have pictured our babies first and last adult pictures(most from Metzer Farms)to show what they will look like fully grown. The geese are by far my favorite with amazing personalities! I can not say enough about the Farm we ordered them from. Their site is a wealth of information making it very easy to choose what would be best for our family. There is also a level of fun as they have a contest if you find any mistakes on the site the award $20 gift certificate per legit typo or mistake. We ended up getting all of these babies free due to Joshs' research. Free or not we would have ordered from them anyway and will in the future as well. They also have excellent customer service. For anyone looking for poultry I would definitely recommend Metzer Farms!
http://www.metzerfarms.com/index.cfm?CustID=106209
Thanks Metzer Farms for these amazing healthy birds!
Ps we only have a few names so far, feel free to offer suggestions!

Butterflys At Last

Empty cocoons.

Painted Lady Butterfly
First feeding. You can give them oranges, or tissue balls saturated with sugar water. (3 tablespoons sugar per cup)

Releasing the butterflies, they didn't hang around my flowers as we had hoped. They took off, we could spot two far off near the trees though. Josh said they had no loyalty. :)

Happy 4th Birthday Joshua!

Joshua just hours old!

He has grown into a smart, busy and curious boy. He loves tools and tractors the most. His favorite thing to do is play in the dirt with his tractors creating roads. He likes breakfast foods the most and it is his favorite meal. So much in fact that he picked waffles for birthday breakfast, and biscuits, eggs and bacon for his birthday dinner. Favorite songs are Big Green Tractor by Jason Aldean, and Life Song Sings by Casting Crowns, he loves music and wants it on constantly. His favorite place is anywhere outside cold and heat don't even stop him and he is most enjoyable being himself fast, loud, and messy! He is still our little tornado growing bigger everyday. Yet we all love him there is never a dull moment!

So excited about a big box form Grandaddy and Grandmommy!

So proud of new construction vehicles. He said these were his best presents!

Front end loader from Mommy and Daddy, he also got a Tonka monster truck, stuffed giraffe, plastic animals play set, garbage truck, small construction vehicles, and a tractor movie.

Quillow Nanny made him, these are great and go from quilt to a pillow inside itself. Brenden and Tayler have them made from Nanny as well and Joshua has been wanting his own.

Giraffe cake. I wasn't to happy with this one, thanks to the humidity I had to cut half of his body off. I was all I could do to spread the icing on this much! It did taste good and Joshua was happy. That is all that is important!

Singing Happy Birthday he sang with us :)

Blowing out candles.

Eating cake and his favorite ice cream sandwiches.

Then and Now Buffalo Park

Brenden is seven in the top picture and Tayler is 4.
In the bottom Brenden is 9 and Tayler is 7. We also have our nephew James on the bottom who is 11. :)

Joshua, Tayler and I went with Brenden and his kindergarten class on a trip to the Tupelo Buffalo park. As you will see we recently revisited for Joshuas' 4th birthday. Boy have the kids have grown! Joshua is about 9 months old in the top picture and the bottom is the day before he turned 4.

Birthday Celebrations

The top picture was taken of Tall Boy when we were visiting with Brenden's class in 2007. Then he was able to stick his whole head over and you could really interact. Now as you can see they have the whole thing caged up I was really disappointed, but I think the kids had fun anyway. This was the best picture we were able to get with Joshua and Tall Boy, by the way he is the tallest giraffe in captivity.

Poor guy reach through the boards to get food we were feeding him, thank goodness for a long tongue! I think it worked like sticky tape. The kids would just poor food on his tongue, to scared to let it touch them. He even cleaned the floor up when all the food was gone, which made me question why didn't he have splinters?

This is Patches, she was very shy though Brenden and I did get a chance to feed her when everyone else cleared out.

The only thing Brenden is missing is a funnel to feed this goat!

Not a great picture of mommy Ha Ha! It was a million degrees and we were all sweating to death! This goat cares not a bit that it is standing on the baby for food! They kinda act like my chickens, who will just about kill each other for food. ;)

James petting a small kangaroo, I got to feed and pet this one as well. It was sooo sweet eating out of my hand slow and soft.

Daddy trying to show Joshua how to show he is four on his fingers. He not only says he is older than he is, hes' trying to show it to. I don't know what it is with the youngest but they try to grow up to fast!

Surprise! Happy Birthday song and dessert!

His birthday dessert and reaction after they sang Happy Birthday to him.

Joshua and Mommy after eating their birthday dinner. Not a great picture of me again (after sweating all day, and we ran into a storm trying to go in getting soaked!)but I had to have a one of my little man and I!
Whew what a busy day this was! We started out at The Buffalo Park, next stop Toys R us to see Jeffrey the giraffe and let Joshua pick out some birthday presents, then the mall where Joshua pushed his new monster truck through(we got some ugly looks, and some awe so sweet good for you looks), Old Navy(ran into a clearance sale my favorite, and I had birthday money to spend), and last Kyoto Japanese steak house. This was a celebration on mine and Joshuas' birthday at once. I am sure you can tell the park and Toys R Us were for Joshua and the mall, and Old Navy were for me. Joshua has a fascination with giraffes and I have known for awhile I wanted to take him here. The steak house was for everyone and my Mothers Day as well, this was the kids first time and I knew they would have a ball!

Grenada Lake Beach

We stopped by the visitors center to buy our beach pass for the year. The kids always like looking at the displays of animals, lakes, and Civil War artifacts.

Brenden takes a nose dive.

Playing bumber cars with floats was a favorite activity.

As well as pulling each other around!

This was Joshuas' first time in the water this year! And he is having just as much as the years before, not sure why he had been so apprehensive?

I love pictures with the kids running through water splashing.