Uh-Oh and Woohoo all in one day.

I had the dumbest accident today.

This afternoon, I changed into my tennis shoes and hooked Verity to her leash to go on our daily walk around the pond. Being the ever obsessive hatchaholic, I stopped by the fireplace to check on the incubators (all three reside on the large brick hearth) before heading outside. As I was turning away, my foot became entangled in the cord belonging to the Brinsea 20, and well, I think you can guess what happened next. Let me give you hint . . . I caused a very loud crash.

You may be wondering what kind of eggs were in the Brinsea: four were from our peahens and the other twelve were guinea fowl eggs that I bought to add to our flock for next year (they came from a flock that is made up of all sorts of lovely, unusual colors: chocolate, slate, buff, blonde, pastel, powder blue, coral blue, pewter, etc). I've been practically drooling over the thought of having keets hatch out in any of those colors. As for the peafowl eggs, all four had already been reserved customers, so I guess it's a good thing that I happened to place five extra eggs under a broody last week.

Unfortunately, after my little game of tug of war with the Brinsea only two peafowl and five guinea eggs made it through unscathed. I dripped candle wax on another four guinea eggs, hoping to seal the cracks in them. I've only had to repair eggs with wax three times before (twice last year without either egg hatching and a week ago with an Indian Runner egg that is, so far, still doing well). I'm keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed that it works with these eggs.

Ooh, before I forget, the Woohoo part of this post.

Have you ever searched for the little black duck that's hidden on Metzer Farms' website? Every month, I search for it (and sometimes find it even though that darned duck is so well hidden). If you find the duck and fill out the form that comes up after clicking on it, you're entered into a drawing to win a $40 gift certificate. Now, I know what you're most likely saying: there are a lot of people that enter it and the chances of having your name picked is probably non-existent. That's what I thought, but it can happen. How do I know? Because my name was picked this month. So, if you've never searched for the duck, go give it a try.

Now, I just need to figure out what to use the gift certificate for - definitely not on hatching eggs.