Graduation parties, cows and ducks

Last weekend was busy with graduation parties and family outings, traveling from home to Paullina to the tiny burg of Buck Grove and back to Marcus over two days. Lots of good food, fellowship and laughs, congratulating the graduates and wishing them the best in their future plans.

Bruce's sister, Carol, came home for a few days and spent Tuesday afternoon with us, walking the dogs at the pond and smelling the lovely cow smells at the home place. Bruce and Carol looking for fish off the dock with Murphy.

"I love my big brother, even though he was kind of ornery to me when I was little."

"I sit at my Master's feet......"

"I love Bruce, more."

A goose family with their babies.

Our newest baby at the farm, my Hereford, Fancy, delivered this adorable little girl.

It seems it was only yesterday when she was a baby herself.

This is why cows don't carry hankies......

...well, this and the fact that they don't have any pockets.

We were standing at a gate watching these cows and they watched us back.

"What? Do you expect us to break out into song and dance?"

But the biggest surprise and mystery of the day was when Carol and I went in the old house to look around and found a dead wood duck in the kitchen! I just couldn't take a picture of the deceased bird so found this one on the internet.

I was convinced that it was a stuffed bird from out in the pool room but Carol, the nurse that she is, bravely poked it with a hanger and said it was not stuffed. We went to find Bruce, who laughed when we told him, I'm not sure he believed us. But there was the evidence on the kitchen floor, ignoring Carol's hanger, Bruce wasn't squeamish about picking up the dead bird and examining him. "Yep, it is a wood duck and it is dead."

Now the questions...

How did it get in the house?

WHY did it get in the house?

If I had only checked a few days earlier, could it have been saved?

They are so beautiful, it's a darned shame.

This is one for the record books, how many people have a wood duck expire in their house? Come home again soon, Carol, for more adventures.