It has been a very long time since I posted last. Just before my hiatus, I made a trip to New York to see my doctor at Sloan-Kettering. It was a wonderful trip, in large part because while I was there I had a clean PET scan and found out that my treatments would be reduced from six cycles of ABVD to four cycles of ABVD. I returned from New York, all keyed up to write this amazing “I’m halfway though with chemo and on top of the world” post, when suddenly things seemed to stop going my way.

A few days following that awesome PET scan, I experienced my most awful chemo aftermath to date. It happened just as I expected it to (but didn’t) the first time. I was so sick. Like wasn’t able to keep food down for almost four days sick. Like even teaspoons of water and ice chips weren’t happening sick. I’m so lucky that this has only happened once (so far). I’m also extremely fortunate that I had my mother in law in town to help Chris with Kai and to make sure that I kept attempting to consume fluids.

Before the wrath of the bad chemo treatment even subsided, another far more upsetting event unfolded. Chris’ grandmother, who he loves very much, passed away. By the time we headed out to Los Angeles to be with his family, I was physically feeling much better, but it did not seem like an appropriate time to write a blog post. I figured that I would catch up on blogging when we got home.

I was correct, but I had no idea just how long we would be gone for. Before we made it home from Los Angeles, we received more terrible news, this time about my Grandmother. Later that day we were headed from LA to New Jersey to be with my family and attend a second funeral that weekend.

Although we have been home for almost a week now, I just haven’t been in the mood to write. Instead of hiding behind my laptop, or in all likelihood, my iPhone, I wanted to spend my time holding Chris and Kai and being together, so that is what we did; I’m sure you all understand.

The ducks are thriving at Duke’s House, so much so that they needed to have a bit more space. We debated many possible solutions, ultimately deciding that the ducks should make their big move to the great outdoors. Although the temperatures are staying warm enough for them to be outside, they are still quite young, so they still need plenty of protection from predators and the elements. On Sunday, we headed to the hardware store to check out our options.

By late afternoon, Chris has finished up their new digs and we just needed to move the ducks themselves. Piece of cake, right?

To simplify matters, we waited for Kai to go to bed before beginning the duck wrangling process. The first method of transport that we selected was via wheelbarrow. Our strategy was to move ten ducks at a time; if anything went wrong, we did not want to have the whole badling of ducks in transit at one time.

I stood on one side of the kiddie pool to encourage them to congregate on the other side, Chris would swoop in on the side opposite me and try to grab one with each hand as they ran back toward me. He placed the ducks that he caught in the wheelbarrow where I monitored to make sure that nobody escaped. After a few go-arounds, Chris has placed ten ducks in the wheelbarrow and we began to make our way the hundred yards or so to their new home. Duke, of course, loved this game.

Chris made little progress with the wheelbarrow before deciding that it needed to remain level. Instead of rolling it, we each picked up one side of it and carried it the rest of the way, rambunctious puppy in tow.

When we finally arrived at their new home, we realized that the wheelbarrow would not fit through the gate. Duke and I stood guard as Chris unloaded the ducks. This was not ideal.

We ditched the wheelbarrow and instead found a deep cardboard box.

Back to the garage, back to wrangling ducks. Chris was getting much better at catching them, but as the population in the pool thinned out, it became obvious that the more nimble of the ducks were the ones left. This time he got ten ducks put into the cardboard box, which he carried across the yard. Much easier.

One last trip, and finally all thirty ducks had arrived at their new home. After a few last adjustments to the heat lamps and double checking their food and water, we decided that the ducks were much better outside than in our garage. I am so relieved to have them outside!

Wednesday morning Chris got a call from the post office.

“You have some birds or something. You need to come pick them up.”

I’m so glad I didn’t put my phone number on the duckling order form. I was MIA at training all week, it would have been pretty interesting if I had needed to sneak out to get them.

So yeah, we have a lot of ducks now. 10 Black Crested Pekin, 9 Indian Runners, and 10 Cayuga. There was one casualty as the ducks made their way from Oakland, CA and Denver.

Chris made his way to the post office as quickly as possible to pick them up and get them settled into their new home. Thankfully, we spent most of Saturday getting ready for ducks. Kai got to go to one of Chris’ favorite stores of all time on Saturday, Rural King, where, ironically, there were plenty of ducks for sale.

Now we have a giant kiddie pool full of ducks in our garage. Who doesn’t, right? They seems to be pretty high maintenance so far. The wood shavings in their pool need to be changed daily, plus they seem to need fresh food and water twice per day. Even Duke just gets one feeding. [Duke free feeds, so it takes him about 24 hours to work through his bowl of food.] With Chris’ insane travel schedule, I am pretty sure that I will be quite ready for the ducks to move outside when the time comes. Of some consolation is the fact that Kai seems to be quite amused by watching the ducks. I’m glad that she appreciates them.

No, they haven’t arrived yet.

But a few things just occurred to me.

1. Chris was gone all week and these guys could have arrived while he was away. What the heck would I have done with 30 ducklings?
2. Chris has definite plans to travel in the future. I obviously have time to take care of ducks in addition to my normal daily activities. Riiiiigt.
3. I wouldn’t know what to do with a duckling if I had one.

Gosh, I hope he is here when they arrive.

I’m kind of regretting this decision.

Animal lovers: Not to worry, I will absolutely care for them no matter what, but perhaps I would have yet again vetoed the idea if I had thought through it more thoroughly. Buyers remorse anyone? And no, Chris doesn’t have it, he is still stoked.

I have said this before: Chris is fairly charming and he often influences people to do things that they wouldn’t normally agree to. Um, yeah, case in point.

“I don’t believe you’ve never brooded ducks before.”

I don’t believe that Chris has brooded ducks before.

Against my better judgement, I just ordered us 30 ducks. Chris has been talking about this for years and finally, the time came.

Thank you eFowl for your awesome selection and free shipping!

Ducks, I truly hope that Chris’ duck brooding abilities match the confidence he has in his skills.

Saturday morning I sprung out of bed to the sound of the baby monitor. As I raced across the house to tend to Kai before she became hysterical, Duke sprung into action too. At first I didn’t think much of it, after all, most dogs like to get the day started right away when their family wakes up.

After I got Kai changed and settled into our favorite chair with a bottle, Duke started pacing by the door.

I let it go for a moment. It was pouring rain with thunder and lightening. It was nasty outside. I needed to get Kai settled down enough that I could leave her in her crib while I got suited up in my rain coat, pants, and galoshes to take Duke out.

He kept pacing, more intensely now. The kind of pacing that made me wonder if he was going to explode into a poopy mess in the middle of my living room. Ugh.

As Duke got more rowdy, Kai did too. Figures. Finally, in exasperation, I opened the door. I did not want to clean up an indoor mess from a 200 pound dog.

Chris often lets Duke out, patiently waits by the door while Duke does his thing, calls him, and Duke prances happily back into the house.

Things initially seemed to be going as planned. Duke did his thing, I called, and he began to lope back in my general direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. A bit too early. Duke hung a left and took off into the swampy part of the orchard.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Suddenly I found myself putting a soon to be screaming baby into her crib, dashing off to put on my rain jacket and pants, and unable to find my galoshes. I quickly settled on an old pair of running shoes and took off into the swamp after Duke.

Within several steps, both shoes had been completely submerged. Sweet. Good thing I didn’t have long pants on under my rain pants.

After a few more steps, I lost one of my untied shoes in the quagmire. You know when the mud just sucks the shoe clear off of your foot? Awesome.

I freed the lost shoe and continued in pursuit of Duke. When I finally caught him he was soaking wet and covered in mud. We made our way back to the house where, strangely, I stood in the rain and hosed him down.

Of course Kai was as upset as I was by the end of that whole ordeal. Thankfully she settled down quickly and we were able to continue with our day.

Next up was grocery shopping. Not much to tell there, the fun began when we got home.

You guessed it.

As I came into the house, arms full of groceries and a car seat, I left the door between the house and the garage open for just a second. Our kitchen is about five feet from that door and the plan was to leave Kai and the groceries in the kitchen floor while I went back to reach into the garage to close the garage door. In that split second while I slid the car seat and grocery bags off of my arms, Duke escaped.

He went bounding towards the pond with me trailing steps behind him. For some reason, he stopped short, dropped to one hip like he was sliding into home plate, and skidded across the wet, muddy grass. Careful not to do the same thing, I reached his side a moment later. Excited to see me, he began rolling in the mud, feet in the air like he thought he would get his belly scratched or something.

Fat chance.

Back to the hose we went, fortunately not in the pouring rain this time, for Duke’s second bath of the day. Lucky for me, Kai slept through this one.

I kind of felt like I had my hands full that day. Although things have gone smoothly since then, at that moment, Chris could not come home soon enough!