Yesterday afternoon, I was minding my own business, flushing hydrants and turning valves near some abandoned hangars inside the flight line. It’s a little corner where no planes go at all, so they don’t maintain the surface and weeds have popped up in every single crack in the asphalt or concrete.

I like these old hangars. I was just showing Junior the biggest one on Friday. I’ve posted pictures before; it’s five stories to the inside ceiling, so tall that it used to get its own little weather systems inside on a humid day. There’s a surprising amount of wildlife in these abandoned bits of urbanity. I’ve seen red and grey foxes, and endangered Kit Foxes elsewhere. I’ve climbed to the roof of the big one, only to find that coyotes had been there before me, presumably chasing the ubiquitous pigeons, rats with wings. A Red-Tailed Hawk lives in the big one as well as a couple of owls, and I regularly startle owls or find pellets in the slightly smaller ones too.

Someone had been in the big open hangar I was working my way around just a little while earlier, showing it to a potential client and making pathetic jokes about me washing the floor out while I was at it. Sorry; the only building washing I do involves a fire hose, and you don’t get to pick and choose where I shoot it. I suggested he roll his windows up or move on, as I was about to demonstrate. He thought I was joking but moved anyway. Good thing; I wasn’t.

Around the other corner of the building next, I was working valves for about ten minutes when my back insisted on a break. I ratcheted myself back upright and relaxed a little and started to look around at my surroundings, instead of straight down like usual. And I saw an oddly-vertical bundle of feathers blown up against a wall of weeds.

Dead things aren’t at all uncommon around here, and I always like to look at them to see what we have. It’s usually birds, but I’ve found some outstanding foxes and some cats, and have a nice collection of skulls from my finds. I casually walked to within about ten feet of the carcass when its head swivelled and it glared at me with big yellow eyes. At that point, it suddenly resolved itself into a baby barn owl, not fully fledged. He wasn’t angry enough with me to clack his beak, but he wasn’t happy.

I was afraid that the guys in the hangar had scared him out into the open before he was ready. They nest in there, and I didn’t know if he was ready to fly or not. His head was still awfully fuzzy, amongst the flight feathers. I quietly walked a little closer, and he took off for a low glide, which reassured me. Unfortunately, he flew away from his cover, and sitting out in the middle of the asphalt, he looked like an awfully juicy target for some wandering predator. The mockingbirds thought so too, and divebombed him. I started to circle around to gently haze him back to the hangar, but he wasn’t having any of it. His next flight was stronger though, and left him in some weedy concealment, so I stopped worrying about him and went back to my work. He’ll be fine.

I sure regretted not packing my camera with me that day though. I need to get back into the habit of keeping it with me; work stories are so much better illustrated.

As I left the house to pick Seamus up this afternoon, I caught my eye on a surprise guest off to my right. Not an unwelcome one, mind you, but a surprise.

She seemed egg-heavy and looking for a place to lay her load down, but she consented to a fifteen-minute photography session after I dashed back into the house and got my macro lens.

She was even gracious about it, not minding at all when the hand she was resting on suddenly swooped up in the air to flip the camera on and off manual focus.

After just a little while, she was relaxed enough with me to groom a little, not minding at all the frantic naughty black cat on the other side of the window.

When I was done, I coaxed her back onto the screen. She was still there when I came home, and sort of nodded a friendly “Hello” at me as I went through the door.

I hope her children stick around here; I do love the mantids, and she’s a beauty. And more gracious than either a human or a feline model; she’s welcome in front of my lens any day.

My household became smaller by one Border Collie’s worth today. Jeff came and picked up Ringo, who I’d been fostering since January.

Ringo was slow to warm to me, but by now, he was my buddy. He’d talk to my in his funny growly voice when I went outside. He was always more interested in getting some loving than playing with the ball, and I’d have to maneuver around him to pick it up to throw for Angus. He’s still horribly camera-shy, and looks away if he even sees you point one towards him.

The three of us had a little fitness program, as I’d take them both for a walk about four days a week. That was Ringo’s favorite time, ever, each time. He’d fly down the road with absolute joy on his face, and bounce right back up to me when I called. He learned to walk on a leash for me, as he had no recall when we started, and would run for the truck as soon as he could see it, no stopping him. He was just at the point where I could stop him (unless he was chasing a rabbit) and he’d look over his shoulder at me all disgusted. He loves his truck, and doesn’t care which truck it is.

Jeff knows I love him, and actually offered him to me, but I turned him down. I do love the dog, but it would be pretty rotten of me to take his dog away from him right when he got home and was trying to get readjusted to life. I told him that if he ever wanted to get rid of him though, he’d always have a home with me.

I wasn’t this attached the last time, with Cheyenne and the old Dalmation and Sioux the puppy. Mostly because I’d raised a litter and was more than ready to have my house back. But Ringo only added to our family, and wasn’t annoying at all, even with his little digging habit.

Angus is going to miss his buddy terribly, but if you would please throw the ball for him, he might feel better.

He was weak when he started, and even though he got a little better, by this morning, he wasn’t even peeping at me. I knew he was done.

He never did learn to stand up, although for a couple of days there, he tried so hard that he’d catapault himself over onto his backside and get stuck upside down, waiting for me to come rescue him. I had to hold him to the food and the water, but he’d eat and drink once he got there. Yesterday was encouraging when one of his legs seemed to be working better, and he’d throw himself around the enclosure in little circles.

But no, when I came home at lunchtime today, he’d expired. Poor little quacker. Seamus knows to expect this, I kept warning him, but he’s going to be a sad boy.

The rest of the eggs didn’t hatch, even though I incubated them for five days after the first (and only) duck emerged. I checked them the other night and didn’t see either movement nor any more blood vessels, so I guess those are toast too. I don’t know why; we didn’t do anything differently and they did grow initially. So I turned off the incubator too. No more ducks.

Poor things. But at least we gave it a shot. Now, would anyone like a very slightly used incubator, waterer, and feeder? I can use the trough and the light and probably the shavings. It will probably be many years before I feel the need to raise eggs again, and this stuff is just going to clutter up my garage.

I came home from work yesterday afternoon, and there was a tiny hole in one of the eggs, with a little beak sticking out. This surprised the hell out of me, as I thought it would be more like Saturday before they were ready to hatch.

So I watched, and I waited. Four hours went by, and the little guy hadn’t made any progress, and his peeps were getting quieter and quieter.

So you know I helped. Carefully, and only a little, but by bedtime, I had a feeble little ducky on my hands.

I set up the trough with some bedding and the light and the food and water. I moved the incubator into a room that I can shut the door on, in case any more decided to make their appearances in the night and get eaten by the very interested cat.

I really expected to see either a little fluff ball or a cold dead duck in the morning. What I got instead was something in between. He’s too weak to stand on his own, but if I pick him up and hold his head over the water, he’ll drink. I may have got a little bit of food down his beak, but I’m not sure. He sure did put up a fuss when I cleaned the crusty poo off his backside though, and that’s a good sign that he’s getting stronger.

I decided against taking them to school. They don’t like to be jostled too much at this stage, and if this guy is any indication, they’re not going to be too hardy. Seamus understands.

So, we’ll see. I’ll give the rest of them a few more days, but really, I expect all of this to have been for nothing. This guy probably isn’t going to make it, and who knows about the rest. But it’s been fun and educational, and if another one hatches, maybe the kids will be home to watch.

Seamus and I have been faithfully tending to these eggs for two weeks as of yesterday. It was blind optimism for the first week and a half or so, as I really had no idea if they’d died or what. We’d candle them and not see anything recognizable.

This week though, it’s pretty clear that at least seven of the nine are developing. I wanted to take some pictures showing the neat veins and the shadow of the embyros in the eggs, but that’s just a little tricky by myself.

So he got to stay up a little late last night to help me photograph them. We had the camera relatively stable, but it’s pretty darn difficult to hold an egg and a flashlight out at arm’s length for such a long exposure without moving at all. Most of our photos turned out to be duds; I may make a cardboard box to document their growth next week, when I won’t have three hands around.

As we were farting around with them, we could see the duck inside twitch and move. On one of them, we could fairly clearly see the yolk sac, so I explained what that was.

I haven’t talked to his teacher in person yet, but my intention is to bring the eggs into the third-grade classroom when they’re close to hatching. I’ll have to bring them home at night and on weekends, of course, but the kids will get a huge kick out of watching them. I’ll have to ask her to call me if they hatch on her watch so I can take some pictures.

And hey, if I’m lucky, maybe some kid in the class has a duck pond at home, and wants to take them. It’s worth a shot, after all, that’s how I grew up having chickens and ducks myself. Class projects led me into this, and back to class projects it shall go.

Meanwhile, it looks like it’s time to go shop for brooder equipment. A galvanized trough should do the job nicely and also fit in my laundry room. How I’m going to sequester them from both the cat and the dogs, now, that’ll be a challenge.

Y’all know about me and Ralph and our connection over small creepy crawly things, right? So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he came knocking on my office door. I expected a lizard or a snake or something. He’s the one I brought my surprise mockingbird guest on Monday, so that we could both be soundly cussed out before the bird squirmed free and zipped back out the door.

But no, Ralph had a story about sampling a well down by the canal, and spotting a crazy looking woman with frizzy black sticky-out hair stomping around down in there. He’s a nosy sort, so he went to see. She had a nest full of duck eggs in a bag, and was collecting some other junk to go with them (who knows why?) She said the momma duck was dead over there in the reeds, that some dogs had killed her.

Ralph offered to put the eggs in his truck while she went and got something to put them in. He waited around for over half an hour, but really had to go. He stopped by our local analytical lab, thinking they’d have an incubator at least. They said if he can’t find someone else, they’d take them.

Of course, you know where he went with them, your friendly neighborhood pseudo-biologist. And it turns out that I have done eggs before. We did that a lot as a kid; one duck, lots of chickens, and assorted small wild birds. But I don’t have an incubator handy. We always used my mom’s yogurt maker–that thing saw more use with baby animals than it did for making gross, sour yogurt.

I figured it’s about chick season (it is) so I went on down to the feed store, and sure enough, found a small incubator. I didn’t buy the auto-turner; how hard can ten eggs be to manage? In ideal conditions, I’d have had the incubator warmed up already, but we don’t know how long the eggs sat without the momma, so I put them right in there. If they’d started and then she was gone overnight, they might all be dead already, but I figure I’ll think positively for a couple of days and then candle them. I’m going to have to make a major guess when to stop turning them for the last few days if they are viable too. And then raise the darn things! Don’t know if I’ll be able to re-release them, but there are some people with duck ponds in the area if I have to. First, we see if I can hatch them.

I hope they’re viable; this will be a fun project.

The cat is intrigued, and the house smells like canal.

Want to see a miracle in progress?

Coppertop’s Belgian mare, Rowan, looks like she’s about to foal on camera. Hurry, go watch!

…I think I see steamy little feet!

Cyrus, you ought to keep your nose to yourself. That momma will kick your ass.

There she goes, serious pushing now.

Fantastic! A baby! (Can’t hear if it’s a colt or a filly.) Oh, but I see it holding it’s head up, and a fine white blaze!

I predict a lot of dog pictures with this project.

Ringo is camera-shy. He’s a lot friendlier if you don’t have anything in your hand, and that goes both for cameras and clippers, so far. He’ll come to me if I insist, but as soon as I take my hand away to get it out of the shot, he’ll either slink off or just look away in disgust. I’m not used to that, not with ham-dog up there posing.

For Christmas, my mom gave me a gift card to Coldwater Creek, my favorite fancy-clothes stores. It took me all of a day to go dive in to the site, and I found this and love it. I don’t believe that I’ve ever owned a more flattering dress, not even when I was thin. Now, my kingdom for a date…

You know, I really think I hit the jackpot with that scrawny wee under-the-shed beastie. He’s grown into a ten-pound monster at only six months old. Sure, he bites, but he’s only drawn blood by accident. When he leaps with fangs of doom out from dark corners to frighten stray feet into submission, he never uses his claws. Thoughtful of him, as well a promoting longevity.

Now that he’s large, I don’t worry too much about the dog getting too rough with him. It’s more of a concern that he will get too rough with the dog, actually.

Isn’t he pretty?

I went out to grill tonight, and those two cracked my shit right up with the fierceness. I had to get Seamus to sneak me out the camera to capture Jekyll beating up on poor Angus, who only wanted to chase his ball.

Dogs bites cat: fairly normal scenario.

Cat bites dog: not so much!

I throw the ball for the dog, and he has to detour around the terror to get it back to me.

Finally, he gives up, and just stares at the ball for a while, wondering if that damn cat is looking.

The cat is always looking. Perhaps the children can distract him? No such luck; they’re too busy laughing at him. Finally, the dog’s wore out, the cat’s wound up, and the burgers are done. I drag his frightfulness back into the house where the kids pop a laundry basket over the top of him and he turtles it around the kitchen like an evil clawed white vinyl tank. That cat’s a good sport; the kids torment the shit out of him and he just comes back for more. I tell the kids that if they tried that with my old cat, they’d have had their faces ripped off long ago, but they just giggle.

He does keep the mood light around here. As long as you don’t step on him following from in front in the middle of the night at least. Overall, I guess this cat-having thing is working out OK. As long as my landlady doesn’t find out, that is!