You are at the whim of nature. This plays out in several ways. The sex of your hatch is up in the air. Not just pullets (females), guaranteed a few or most will be roosters. Are the eggs fertile and will they take?  Candling is an art to figure out. The learning curve is accelerated by the first rotten egg you experience. Will the broody hen be a good mama or will she abandon the nest  for some reason. And with ducks, all domesticated ones except the muscovy came from the mallards, and have had the broody instinct bred out.

Fortunately for us we were able to convince the sort of broody duck hen to sit for 28 days on her nest. So now we have 4 ducklings. They escaped the black snake by the savvy mother getting them out of the nest when they were less then 1 day old. She did abandon the 4 other eggs.  One was actually hatching, so some quick thinking, a hot water bottle, and wool sweater sleeve allowed the duckling to survive.  All are doing well and growing so fast.  Still don’t know if they are hens or drakes, that will take awhile to figure out. And the black snake…it got away. Let’s just hope it’s pulling double duty on the voles and mice!

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Our newest Provisional Member is Rae Jean. At our Sunday, March 25th Council meeting, she celebrated her leap over the candle with a full-on cartwheel and much applause before we lifted her up high over our heads and sang. Rae Jean has always loved nature and felt close to the Earth, and lived for many years in the mountains of Colorado, where she was a farmer-homesteader and herbalist. She’s been visiting Earthaven since 2004, and became an Exploring Member in 2006. She works as operations manager and customer fulfillment at Red Moon Herbs and serves on the Forestry and Agriculture and Membership committees. She and fellow Earthaven members Clark Goslee and Peggy Austin recently purchased Brandon Greenstein’s house and homesite Settler’s Creek neighborhood. (Brandon, his wife Tanya, and their three girls are moving to a homesite in nearby One Stone community, and Brandon will still be involved in Earthaven.) Rae Jean, Clark, and Peggy intend to micro-farm their new homesite extensively, and to develop the Settler’s Creek neighborhood.

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