A Boy and His Blog: May 2012

Ducks

One morning we saw two wild Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks that flew in to eat and visit with our other ducks. I'm ashamed to say that our fat ducks chased the other ducks away from their food. Since these ducks are so neat looking I decided to look them up.Click here to see better pictures and click here to learn more. I learned that

These ducks are so different than other ducks, one bird watcher called them the most un-duck-like.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks eat lots of plant material, but also eats water bugs too.

Most of these ducks look alike.

Whistling-Ducks pairs stay together for life.

Females share nest and lay an average of 13 eggs.

Sorry this picture didn't turn out well.

Chick and Garden Update

I'm writing this post since I promised to keep my blog updated with the chicks and garden growth. My Quail have grown up and have started laying eggs. They have laid almost forty eggs in nine days. I'm hoping to get a incubator and try to hatch some of their eggs. The broilers are fat and lazy, they have grown a lot. Dad has been butchering some of them and we've been eating them. The Buff Orpington chicks have gotten bigger and have became free range. Our garden is over grown with weeds and has lots of grasshoppers. We've been getting LOTS of squash, a few zucchinis, one cucumber, lots of okra, and about twenty tomatoes. I love having a garden, the produce you get from a garden has lots more flavor than the kind at the store. I would really recommend
having a garden.

Broilers

Cucumbers

Old Mill Pond Museum in Lindale, Texas

My Mom, who is the wonderful field trip coordinator for the TACHE group in Tyler, scheduled another field trip, this time to the Old Mill Pond Museum in Lindale, Texas. After everybody arrived, they split us up into two groups. The group I was in went to the Mill Pond Museum first. Inside it was designed as an old-timey watermill. First, we got to see an old drug pharmacy and doctor's / dentist's tools. Next, we saw an area with a lot of old axes, saws, and blades. Then, we saw the cooking area, here there were many old fashioned cooking instruments used long ago. My favorite part of this area was the nut crackers. They were in the shapes of parrots, alligators, and squirrels. When we were done with this part, we saw the cleaning section. In this area they had a huge collection of old irons that were really heavy. Here they also had washing boards and other laundry utensils. After this area we saw musical instruments such as zithers, banjos, and a 115 to 120 year old organ.

Since the place is called Old Mill Pond, we got to see the water wheel and learned how it ran. I was surprised when they told us that the big wheel did not take much water to make it run. But I was sad to learn they do not use the power from the wheel any longer because it is too much work. Next, we saw the farming section, here there were old gardening tools, a long metal pole with spikes which was used for drying corn (you would stick the corn on the spikes and later you would have dry corn for seed or feed). Dry corn can be kept longer because it will not spoil as fast. Also, there was a board with little pegs sticking out of it you would stick the pegs in the ground and it would leave holes for planting tomatoes. These along with many others were some of the tools in the farming section.

Then, we went up into a little loft area and saw a train replica of old Lindale. The train was not running the day we were there, I hope to go back and see it running sometime. After that we saw old school books and desks. We saw tools they would have used a long time ago for building, like saws, hammers, and wrenches. Next we were shown nesting houses for chickens.

We got a tour of the property that the land was on; here I learned that there once was an old brick factory where the museum is located. We saw several buildings that had old tractors and farm equipment inside. We were shown a replica of a old church. We had lunch at the picnic area. After lunch we got to spend more time looking around in the museum. I had a really fun time and I'm looking forward to going again.

If you have not been, I suggest that you go. You can tell by how many pictures I took, I really liked the trip. Thanks Mom!