semperfiona | Assorted news from the homestead

We have ducklings! We hadn't seen M. et Mme. l'Orange for some time, but yesterday Tammie and Rosa called me all excited to announce that Madame showed up with four ducklings in tow. They spent most of the day between the ground feeder and our pond. When I got home from work, they were still there. Nobody ran away at the approach of a car, nor of a human.
And lo and behold, while we were all watching, a fifth duckling appeared from out of nowhere (or maybe from under the feeder). Monsieur was nowhere to be seen; when I asked, Tammie said that Rosa had been asking about him all day, and that apparently mother ducks raise the young alone.

Rosa started summer school on Monday ("Ready! Set! Go to Kindergarten!"). So far she has really been enjoying it. It's been rather an adjustment for us all, though; her class starts at eight a.m. We have to get up significantly earlier to get her snack made and all of her stuff together and get her to school on time, and we've had to change her bedtime commensurately. She's been pretty good about the change, thank gods.

In the afternoons, she's having her first swimming lessons. Finally. I've only been talking about sending her (taking her) to swimming lessons for the last four years! She loves it. I knew she would, after last summer at the lake where she practically grew gills.

Well crap. As I'm writing this, I received a phone message from Armida. Rosa is very sick--high fever, tonsils inflamed, sore throat--and she is going to take her to the doctor.