Make way for ducklings!

One of the mommas has had her babies and the other is getting close to having her one! I bet you can guess which is which!

Over the weekend and amazing thing happened behind the little prim fence that hides the outside faucet right close to My Red Door...

and if you look closely for some yellow....
you can see one baby duckling!!
DH was outside chipping golf balls one evening and all of a sudden I heard him say "honey honey - come quick" and I knew right away what it was. Momma duck puffed herself right up and covered that baby as quick as can be too. She made some noises to warn us to get away so we left her alone for the evening. The next morning bright and early we checked and we saw more... Once again, she puffed herself right up and we left her and her sweet babies alone.
And then we went out about 2 hours later and this is all we saw....
Just a pile of downy feathers and egg shells!! We left them undisturbed for well over 24 hours in case she had taken the ducklings to water and had left any unhatched eggs behind, but she never came back. We have walked up and down the brook where we can access it, and we can't see her or them. These 3 pictures show only part of the brook. You can see there are many places to hide if you are a momma duck wanting to protect your babies! The brook is the dark areas you see behind the trees and shrubs. It meanders along starting at the back right edge of our property and goes all the way across the back and and then heads toward the street on the left side or our property and goes under the street. You see the old New England stone wall that was built a long time ago when this was part of an old old farm called Rawson Farm. That is Rawson Brook. There is enough poison ivy on the other side of that wall to keep Calamine Lotion and Benedryl in business forever so we don't venture over there. I suspect Momma duck knows that!
Or she could have taken them on a ride down this brook to the pond that it spills into about 1/4 mile away. I guess we will never know!! DH and I are still amazed that Momma duck picked that spot in the midst of our little concrete jungle to lay her eggs. I am so glad our home provided her with a safe haven when she needed it. I am so glad we were able to get photos. And Monday, when I was browsing the Smith and Hawkins garden decor at Target, I found the perfect and useful item to commemorate momma duck and her ducklings. This sweet duck garden hose guard.
My curly garden hose is normally attached to the faucet and hidden behind the fence during the summer months and I always need to be extra careful that I don't break my flowers when I pull it across the front steps to water my perennials. Now this little duck will watch guard - just as we did for momma duck! It is just perfect and even DH was excited about this purchase. Every spring when I take out it once again to stick in this spot, it will remind us of this astonishing event. I really love that it reminds me of the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture in Boston. If you aren't familiar with the story behind this sculpture, click on the name. And that reminds me, I need to buy a copy of Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, a Caldecott award winning book so I can read it to Liliana some day! We are all anxiously counting down the last few weeks and I suspect no one more than Angela. She had a check up on yesterday afternoon and she is 3 cm dilated and 40% effaced already so there is a real possibility that Liliana could come sooner than her due date. Stay tuned for the next report!

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Waiting for me when I got home Monday was a package with a note on the outside saying it was a gift from my sweet friend Bonnie. I introduced you to Bonnie last August when she and I met and spent the day shopping together. You can read all about it here. Bonnie lives about an hour north of me and she shares my love for colonial and prim decor. Click here to see her gorgeous home when it was the featured home on A Primitive Place. Look at these wonderful goodies she sent me in appreciation of some things I had given to her.

Bonnie ordered them from our blogging friend Karen from My Colonial Home and she had Karen send them directly to me. Double the fun! A gift from one sweet prim friend and made my another sweet prim friend. How blessed I am!! Thank you Bonnie! I will treasure these!

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And because this is a new month, it meant another outing for my friend Chris and I. This month we decided to head to the Village Shoppes in Marlborough, CT. This area was formerly known as The Marlborough Barn, and is a short ride from Hartford, CT in a lovely rural New England setting and it is anchored by the perfect little pond. We have been going to Marlborough for years now. Some of the shops have changed but Sadlers Restaurant and New England Traditions remain steadfast. New England Traditions also has a shop in Sturbridge and that is where I have gotten many of my ceiling light fixtures over the years. Sadlers is a lovely little restaurant in an old cape style New England home. They make the best Butternut squash Bisque and they even share the recipe on their website. New England Traditions is the gray building and Sadlers is on the right.

This shop was the former barn. Now it houses a shop with an odd mixture of things like stationary, boutique style clothing and a kitchen shop Here is the pond... it is a bit overgrown these days.
This shop is a new extensions of New England Traditions and has curtains and some prim shopping as well as fireplace accessories and hand forged hard ware.
These shops house a Bakery for dogs and a consignment shop and craft area.
I didn't find a thing I had to come home with this time!! But we did have a delightful lunch and here is the one picture I got inside of Sadler's. I enjoyed a mesclun salad with strawberries, raspberries, apple slices and sunflower seeds with a raspberry vinaigrette. YUMMO!

Well how about earning some hefty change by using your debit card and checking accounts! And yes, you heard me right - I said debit card! Doesn't sound right huh? I know! And I know I have mentioned several times how we charge everything and pay off the charge card bills EVERY month and earn some really great rebates that way. Well that and the stock market losses (ouch!) just weren't good enough for my brilliant DH, who really wants to retire early and spend more time on the golf course! So armed with that motivation, he did quite a bit of online homework and research and found several banks that give 5% interest ~ YES 5%!!!~ on checking accounts if you meet several requirements. For each account, you have to deposit a certain amount of money and each month you have to make so many debit transactions (usually 10) as well as at least one automatic bill payment and you must view your account online so it is a paperless account saving printing and mailing costs. So my very smart personal money manager moved a some of our retirement money into 4 different FDIC insured banks with these type of accounts. Keeping track of 4 debit cards was a full time job so I use 2 cards and DH uses the other 2 and HE has detailed spreadsheets to keep track of them all. Dave Ramsey - move over - there is another Dave R on your heels! I have said many times, my DH could have written a similar course a long time ago. He has trained me well and if he can succeed in keeping MY spending in line, he can help just about anyone! I mention this because if my DH can do his homework, other folks can as well and maybe you too can earn 5% interest. Just remember you still have to live well below your means and budget carefully and you too can grow your retirement account. And that's a very good thing!

With that I leave you until I am back again to answer a few more requests. My peeps are keeping me busy lately. And that's a good thing too. I so enjoy all of the wonderful folks I have met online. My world has been immensely enriched!

Until next time- hugs, Linda