Tag: nature

Ruby and the Dragonfly

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

This morning, while I was doing morning chores, I had just finished up moving the turkeys to their outdoor space and was walking toward the main gate when I saw my first dragonfly of the year. It was beautiful.

I love dragonflies. First of all, they eat mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes have been epic this year. Second of all, they are beautiful creatures.

The one I saw this morning was black and silver and was so bright and shiny this sunny morning. It looked much like this one in the photograph. The dragonfly was dancing around my legs as I walked toward the gate, and it was such a treat for a weary soul. It just sparkled, and I felt like it was saying hello to me.

It followed me to the gate, and when I stopped to close the gate, I noticed it was headed toward the trees out front. I said goodbye in my mind, thankful for the moment to appreciate nature’s beauty.

Then, because she is always out and about and not in the chicken yard, Ruby appeared. In a flash, she had grabbed the dragonfly from its path and ate it. Just like that.

I looked at her. She looked at me.

“What?” she asked.

photo credit: Christophe Repiso, Unsplash

The Misfits (or the Beautiful Diversity in Nature)

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

I have a carton of eggs that I keep in the refrigerator just for us. I labeled the carton “The Misfits.” These are the eggs that come out very small or unusually large or with a strange shape or maybe they are a pale color and the poop stains the shell even after I wash them. I have often thought about how much I love these “misfits.”

They are not the perfect eggs from our flock in dark brown or light cream or blue-green with a beautiful shape, so I don’t put them in the egg cartons that I sell to our egg customers. I have the idea that people wouldn’t want to pay for the “misfits” because they are not perfectly-shaped like the ones in the grocery store. They are so beautiful to me, but I have always loved the misfits.

But lately I have been thinking about how the perfect eggs are a big lie. They are simply a lie told to us by a food system that keeps us detached from the reality of our food and where it comes from. And I feel that lie is a part of an even bigger lie about the uniformity of nature. It’s one Americans have told themselves so powerfully and so often that we can’t see the beauty in the diversity in the nature we are a part of.

Nature is beautiful in its diversity. Not all eggs are perfectly egg shaped. From our flock, we get round eggs, pointy eggs, skinny eggs, and we have one hen who just lays the tiniest little egg all the time. Sometimes, there are big eggs with double yolks. A couple of times we had an egg with a shell inside of an egg. It’s all fantastic and interesting. The egg companies take their “misfits” and use them in other products, so people who only get eggs in the grocery store never get to see the beauty in all that diversity. Oh, we miss so much!

When I researched to see what the egg companies did with their oddly-shaped eggs, I read that some people are scared to eat eggs that are oddly shaped. It’s so interesting to me that we are scared of what is different. I guess I can see a human needing to be wary of anything different, as you wouldn’t want to eat a bad egg, but we definitely need education because it’s not necessary to fear something just because it is different.

With all this in my mind, I decided last week to put some of my misfits into the egg cartons for the egg customers. It was just a couple of eggs in the 18 pack but hopefully enough to remind the wonderful humans who buy our eggs that not all eggs are the same size and shape. Goodness comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Eggs are everything, are they not?

Earth Day 2025

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I wish I had something profound and inspiring to write today for Earth Day. I can only emphasize that our planet is magnificent to me. It’s such a gift. I can only say that it makes no sense to me that powerful men destroy this planet and then look for a home on another.

But I have spent so many years of my life anguishing over human behavior and carelessness with our planet. I will be honest. I feel a little more disillusioned than I would like siting here writing about it tonight.

I still have hope though. I have hope that, when things get really bad, humans will say, “enough is enough, let’s work together and figure this out.” I have hope that, even if we don’t, the Earth will heal from our damage and go on to support life that may be so different from our own but that will be so beautiful. Though, really, humans are beautiful, are we not? Flaws are beautiful. But you can be beautiful and be tragic.

I have hope that, at some point, all of the little things we do will add up, and we will replace the people at the top who seem hell bent on creating their bunkers and letting the rest burn, who seem to think that destruction is inevitable because they don’t understand how resilient life is. They have never connected with Nature, and it shows. And we will say “no more, we love our home.” And Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer will be required reading in all classrooms.

It could happen, right? Sometimes–okay maybe most of the time–with humans, we have to break things before we realize we need to fix them.

And, while I am finding hope within my disillusionment, I am going to keep trying to be better as an individual. I will keep things until they break and then fix them if I can or get them fixed if I can. I will never spray chemicals in our yard. I will plant native plants. I will be careful with my water use. I will wear the same clothes over and over, and I won’t buy fleece ever again. I will try so hard not to waste. I will try to live more simply. And, finally, this summer, I am going to put in the clothesline I meant to put in last year but never did, as I struggled with long COVID.

And I will remember how good it feels when I put my hands in the Earth, and I will remember to be thankful for her and all the life she gives us.

Happy Earth Day, friends. Sending love. Please tell me what gives you hope. I could use it.

photo credit: Hans Isaacson, Unsplash

Slowly–an Update

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

It has been far too long since I have written! We have been busy around here with the usual summer work. It’s blueberry season right now here in Maine, and it has been a good one. Just ask the birds in our yard. They will confirm that our blueberry bushes were loaded with berries this year!

Some years, when we see the birds eating all of the berries, we will net the berries, but we haven’t had the heart to do it the last couple of years. It just seems like the birds have generally shared some with us, and we have to worry constantly about a bird getting caught in the net. Over the years, we had two birds caught in the net, even though we mark the nets with bright colors and weave bright yarns across the tops. Thankfully, both times, we helped the birds escape the net, but we always worry what would happen if we weren’t home or just didn’t notice a trapped bird.

This year, a family of Robins and a very large family of Mourning Dove have eaten almost every last berry. We got about a quart and a half. I estimate they have had about six quarts so far, so they are not sharing very well this year.

Thanks to the birds, I am making my favorite breakfast this summer using blueberries from another farm. I really, really love blueberries and oatmeal.

We eat a lot of blueberries throughout the winter, so Ron and I made a trip north to our favorite blueberry farm in the middle of nowhere and spent last Friday picking berries all day. I noticed we were slower than ever before, especially me. Our family is making progress with this long COVID stuff, but it has been hard to spend the summer so tired and so worn. Still, we are slowly getting things done.

We have put up strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, broccoli, cauliflower, and turnips so far. I have also made jams and jellies, and we have eaten something fresh from the garden every single night since the first of June–spinach, lettuce, radishes, berries, and kohlrabi so far. We have also raised and processed 26 meat chickens, and I have 8 dozen eggs in the freezer for winter. I need to get about 4 more dozen.

Of course, because we are so slow at everything (in particular I am slow at everything) I haven’t had time to write. I’m just barely getting by this summer, but I am thankful to be getting by.

We were so slow picking the blueberries on Friday that I marveled we were going to have to make two trips. I was just too tired to pick enough for the winter in one trip. Still, Ron and I were diligent and did our best. We are learning that, some days, that’s all you can do–your best. And we’ll go back for more blueberries this coming Friday.

I feel I should also update readers in other ways because it has been just so long. I’ll start with a Ruby update. She’s as sassy as ever, and she finally un-broodied herself. This is the first summer of her life that I haven’t let her raise a clutch of chicks. It took her nearly two months to accept the fact that there would be no babies this year, but she has accepted. Still, as I was celebrating Ruby finally breaking herself from being broody, Saint-Saens has decided to go broody, as has Petty. Petty is such a good mom. It’s hard to deny her, but we’ll try to plan for next year.

Mary Jane and Rooster are still hanging in there, but Hector has water belly. She is very young, so this means she does not have good genetics, and it’s heartbreaking. However, I did a small drain last week and will do another one this week. Hopefully, we can keep her going and comfortable for a few more months. She’s such a magnificent girl. What a crappy deal she got. I guess that’s how it goes. Sometimes, you just get a crappy deal.

With crappy deals in mind, I had to leave the farm last week and fly to see my brother in Oklahoma because he is so sick. I cannot say a lot here, but he’s way too young. He definitely got a crappy deal too.

Oh, and the night before I had to fly to Oklahoma, we lost our first duck ever. I was devastated. I will have to write more about it, but it was our mean girl. She lived a good long life though, and while I am sure it felt like a crappy deal in the end, she handled it with grace. I hope to handle my death with such grace. I swear, it was like she knew she was moving on.

I hope you are all doing well, and I hope to start writing more this week. I am so glad to be home from my travels and back with my family–the human and furry kind. I somehow managed to sprain my ankle, so it’s forcing me to move even more slowly–and also sit and write a bit.

It feels good to get back to it.

A Poem for Earth Day

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I have been saving this for Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, everyone! I hope this poem moves you the way it did me.

What Would I Say to You If I Were Dying

James Sands

Perhaps I would say, “That is a melodramatic title,”
but then I would say, and quickly, “I’m really not, 
(just to counter your grandiosity)
not more than the usual, anyway, but
there is a chance you are.”

When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here.

Still, there is something to be said, I suppose, 
for the going away—the absolute rest, for one; 
perhaps you will end in view of a stand of fall maple
when the sky is orange-yellow turning late October night,
and a great murder of crows will suddenly swirl and swoop
to fill the air and the soon to be bare branches of trees
with black shapes and caws, raucous calls, beating wings, all
just to say no, you won’t be alone;
there will be others at their end too,
so many others—all taken by you.

When the landscape has changed 
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting 
where the moon is a ghost.

 There can be solace in that—for some, I suppose,
and I will wait for those to return in different anatomy
rendered flesh by some future scripted sea, 
where the waters lap rhythmically and silent 
against a shore once more primordial 
preparing an anthem, sonorous, resonant, and vital, 
to the fecund paean of unrelenting life
rebuilt from the stars, nurtured
among the remnants and scars
of your human strife. 

When the landscape has changed
to the barren architecture of despair,
I will be here, waiting
where the moon keeps ghosts
on the acrid night air 
for the smoke that remains
of your madness to clear. 

photo credit: NASA

The Night Before

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Tonight, we are expecting another big storm, another nor’easter, and I think we are ready. There is gas for the generator; Ron cleaned the chicken coop since the poor chickens will likely be confined to the coop all day; and I made enough homemade pizza to last three days.

I am not really ready mentally though. I feel especially worn of winter this year, and I worry about the poor chickens. It’s been a back and forth spring for sure with quite a few storms. The chickens get some freedom, and then they lose it. They get some freedom, and then they lose it. I noticed during the last nor’easter that tempers were flaring. In their older age, Bertha and Cora are pretty grumpy.

But I wanted to tell a quick story about Luna.

Luna is living her best life in the mud.

I have been making sure I touch her every night during peas because I don’t want her to forget about me. When Anna Sophia was in the house for a couple of months, we were best good friends, and a few weeks after she moved back with her people, it was like she forgot all about me. The only thing I notice is that she is almost always the last one in the duck house after playing the duck game after peas, but that’s all I get. She went back to her wild and free self. I don’t want that to happen to Luna–at least not all the way.

Luna is certainly living it up as her wild and free self. Ducks love mud season more than life itself it seems, and Luna, who was so clean and neat in the house is wild and dirty every day. She’s the dirtiest one.

Tonight, I got a sad surprise because, when she was eating her duck peas, she wouldn’t let me touch her! I tried twice, and she moved away from me. I stood above the ducks while they ate and watched the wind blow through the trees, signaling what is to come tonight.

I was thinking to myself, “This is how it goes. You love things and then you have to let them go.”

But, then, when we were playing the duck game, I noticed it was Luna who was the last one to go into the duck house instead of Anna Sophia, so I decided to see if I could pick her up. She let me. She looked a little concerned at first, so I said, in my sweetest sing-song voice, “Luna baby,” And the look in her eyes changed. I could see she remembered me still.

I leaned my head in and she leaned her head in, and we just stood there, leaning in for a minute. She rubbed her head on my cheek just like she used to do, and I was so grateful.

I sat her down in the duck house and told her I loved her. She went back with her people.

I miss Luna–and other updates

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

Tomorrow will mark the two week anniversary of Luna returning to the flock. We had to keep the bully duck separated for a week, but Mean Girl has now returned to the flock as well. Our plan worked, and Mean Girl is no longer Mean Girl and is now just Carmelita again. Luna is getting along very well, though, I swear, in all of the snow and ice here yesterday, I think she looked at me with a certain kind of longing for her warm fire and Back cello suites.

Still, she is doing very well overall. The other ducks will not let me touch them unless they need some kind of help, but every night, when I deliver the bowl of peas at bedtime, I just touch Luna all over her little feathers and tell her I love her so much. She lets me. And that’s the extent of our relationship now. I can’t stop missing her, and I am definitely changed for the better by my experience with her. This summer, I’m going to make our son play some Bach on his cello outside on the deck where she can hear. I want to see if she remembers.

In other news, the ducks and chickens are laying in full force. I have been too worn out to try to sell eggs, even to most of our regular customers, so I think right now we have about 10 dozen eggs in the house–and that’s with our son eating many, many eggs every day. He loves fresh eggs. It’s a good thing he lives on a chicken farm.

Look at these beautiful duck eggs. That striped one is the little miracle Luna left for us the last night she was in the house. I did pretty well keeping her out of the light, and she only laid an egg about twice per week. I guess her “ink” was doing funny things. What a treasure!

We have had some terrible weather the last couple of days. Everything was all spring like, and I was ready for it. Then, we got snow and then more snow and wind and rain and ice and then some more snow. Ron and I spent all of yesterday shoveling trying to keep the ducks comfortable and trying to stay ahead of the ice. We did pretty well overall, but still, this morning, I had to use warm water to open the doors on the chicken coop and shed with the straw.

I told Ron this morning that I had never seen anything quite like this morning, but then I realized I remember saying that last year when we had the -50 degrees with the wind chill and that this is what climate change is all about–a whole bunch of “I have never seen anything like this before.”

Speaking of climate change, I actually went back to really writing this week. I have been in a drought for a long time. I have much to write in the blog, but I spent last week working on an article about climate change in Maine that will be published next month. The article was interesting to research, and I learned so much. It also felt good to be back to work in that way. When I was really struggling with COVID, I made a bunch of deals with myself and the universe that, if I could just get better, I was going to focus my energy on things I love much more. I am happy to be back to writing.

I sure miss Luna though.

We are ALL made of stars.

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Last week, Ron brought this beautiful egg to me and said it reminded him of a picture of the universe he had just seen online. He said it made the egg even more beautiful to him.

“We are all made of stars,” I said.

And then he showed me the picture of the universe he saw, and it was remarkably like the spots on the beautiful egg our little Faure lays. I couldn’t share that exact photograph because it is copyrighted, but I found this older picture of the universe. The one you see here was taken by the Hubble telescope in 2009. The patterns on Faure’s egg are so similar to the photo of the universe, and this connection Ron pointed out to me made me think about just how much humans have in common with animals around us, and this was something I didn’t fully understand until I became a farmer. Living so closely with animals helps me understand that humans aren’t that special and yet we are so, so special.

We are all made of star stuff–carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and such–ALL of us. I think most humans think we are special but forget that elephants, dogs, chickens, and ducks who like Bach are made of the same stuff. So many people think we are so different from the animals around us. For a long time, western science said so too. Science is catching up to the truth, I think, but of course, some people have known all along. In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, she writes about the Potawatomi language having words for plants and animals that would translate as things like “tree people” and “horse people.”

In the ten years I have been watching my chickens live their lives in their little community on our farm, I have seen how they make friends, mourn for each other, have people they don’t like, snuggle each other, argue with each other, fight with each other. They are social creatures. They worry. They anticipate. Some of them make cross species connections to me. I see how most of them go along with the crowd. There are some unusual ones who struggle to fit in with the crowd. There can be a price to be paid for not fitting in too. Doesn’t this sound familiar? In so many ways, we are all the same–different scale, different levels of it, but the same stuff.

In the past, when I have tried to tell people this, I have been dismissed, even laughed at, reminded that we can’t “humanize animals,” which is frustrating, especially given the research on chicken intelligence. I have seen some people even seem offended that I would compare humans to chickens.

But it’s magical to me that we all have so much in common, that we are all so similar. There are pattens in Nature that repeat everywhere. Nature is efficient like that. If it works, it works. And we all have those patterns in our cells–in the fabric of who we are. It binds us, does it not?

That’s the magic in this world, and I think we miss this too much. But it’s there, right in front of us–just waiting for us to pay attention to it.

Grumpy Duck

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I haven’t written about Luna or anything in a few days because I have been very busy with my new part-time job. My new job is being a duck servant to Luna all day every day.

Luna has not taken well to her life in the house, especially since she had to come back inside due to her bill injury after mostly healing from her leg injury. I think she thought she was home free, so coming back inside full time seemed to take a toll on her. I think she made sure it took a toll on me too. If you have never heard a female duck quack with all of her might, I assure you it’s quite loud. It hurts. And in our old house with wood floors, the quack echoes loudly. My son is very sensitive to sounds, and I am a bit as well, so I try to do what I can to avoid this loud quacking. I have been running and jumping and tending to a grumpy duck for several days now, and I am pretty worn.

My mornings start with having to carry buckets of her tub water out of house because Ron worries about putting a giant duck bath, which is a lot of water, into our septic system. So, every morning, one of us has to carry the water out of the house. It’s usually me because Ron is busy building a fire in the wood stove and when I am done with carrying water from Luna’s bath, Ron has to carry buckets of water out to the outside ducks for their daily water. They use about 40 gallons or so a day, more when the water freezes and we have to carry out more in the middle of the day. Have I mentioned that I will never have ducks again?

After I empty the tub, I put Luna and her nest into my son’s music room and shut the door to keep her safe from our two curious kitties, and then I head out to do the chicken chores. Thankfully, the chickens only require 5 gallons of water each morning, so I carry out 1 bucket to Ron’s 8.

After the chickens are all set, and that takes a good bit, I am back in the house on Luna duty. I scrub the tub and then start the water. I make tea and coffee while that water is running. Oh, and I feed the kitties. Then, I can go get Luna, who is usually quacking quite loudly to let me know she is dissatisfied and needs her morning time in the tub. I have to hold her like she’s flying because she feels better when she “flies” through the house (runner ducks cannot really fly but can certainly flap those wings), and then I bring her in for a soft landing in her tub. She loves the warm water and splashes around so much. That’s pretty much the only time of the day she’s happy.

While she’s doing that, I have to clean all of her dishes and her nest box. I take her old straw out to the duck area, so the outside ducks can use it to keep their feet warm. I get new straw and food and fresh water, and her little nest box is all ready to go for when she finishes tub time.

And that’s just the morning. While I am busy all day trying to work, grade papers, homeschool, cook, and whatever else it is that I do, I am up about every half hour meeting some demand from Luna. The cats are too close. The dogs are too close. She needs to poop (she is amazing and won’t poop in her nest box or on the floor unless she just has no choice). She wants to be with her people. She wants to walk around. She doesn’t like the curtains. The curtains moved. The broom is scary. The wrap for her foot looks like a snake. Snakes are super scary to ducks, I guess. She wants peas. She doesn’t like the red shirt I am wearing. I have to change shirts. She needs fresh water. She needs more tub time. And I don’t even know what else.

On top of this, Ron hurt his back terribly Monday night trying to chop up a downed tree near the chicken yard from the bad storm about a month ago, so in addition to waiting on a grumpy duck, I had to do farm chores by myself all day on Tuesday. I did all of the buckets of water going in and out by myself, and it was so, so hard–and then I got a flu shot–and then I went down, like down, down.

Thankfully, Ron’s back is better because I put my homemade CBD cream on it, and it fixed it! I was so grateful he was better and so grateful I didn’t have to do chores by myself today, especially since it snowed quite a bit. I was so worn this morning, I couldn’t even finish my part of the snow shoveling. Normally, Ron does our driveway because it is long and epic, our son does the back side of the house, and I do the chicken and duck areas. I just barely finished the chicken area this morning when Ron saw me and was like, “You have to go inside.” I would normally argue but not today. I just went inside. The warm fire in the wood stove Ron built was heaven. For a few minutes, I just sat there in front of the fire while Luna was in her tub.

And, in another “thankfully” today, things took a better turn with Luna. She wasn’t nearly so grumpy. The cats can get a little closer without causing alarms, and she is starting to like me now, like quite a bit. She lets me pet her. I tried to sit with her on the couch the other day, and she wouldn’t let me, but I might try it again. I think I’ve won her over.

She barely complained today and seems to like it that we got a new, bigger nest box for her. She seems to understand that I am trying so, so hard. Oh, and she started laying eggs from being in the light so much. It’s great for us but not good for her to be laying in January, so I am trying to make sure she spends more time in the dark. She laid her first egg on Monday, and I was so excited. Then, I realized I was a stupid human who had forgotten that she didn’t need so much light. So I am addressing that, but, truly, the eggs are lovely.

When the snow melts in the spring, we are going to try to slowly integrate her back into the flock using the tried and true method for reintegration where you keep them together for a while but separated by a fence, so no one can get hurt. If that doesn’t work, Luna will have to live in the house for the rest of her life, I suppose. Hopefully, it will get easier. It’s been a tough month or so with this duck. I think we are finally starting to become friends though–or else she just has Stockholm syndrome.

Plot Twist: A Luna Update

~ Crystal Sands ~ 5 Comments

I was all very much prepared to write a blog post this week about my success with Luna. It has been one month since the “incident” with Bairre when he accidentally stepped on her, and her leg has healed quite well. It is still a little off, and she still has a bit of a limp. However, she gets around very well. It really barely slows her down.

Because Luna was reluctant to eat in the house early on, as soon as she was able, I would let her spend time outside with her people, little bits at a time. It helped get her appetite going, and with her leg wrapped up, she could hang with her flock for at least a couple of hours each day. I was amazed that no one was aggressive to her when she would go back outside for visits. I was so grateful because flock aggression is a real issue with our ducks.

This week, Luna was doing so well and the temperatures were warm enough that I decided to leave her outside all day one day. In the evening, I went to check on her, and she didn’t want to come in. I let her spend the night with her people, and in the morning, I scooped her up, gave her a soak in the tub for about an hour, wrapped her leg, and let her go back outside. This seemed to be working so well for a couple of days until one afternoon I was outside with the chickens and heard a terrible commotion from the ducks. I wish I could have run, but there was so much ice on the ground that it took me a bit to get to the ducks. I found a terrible situation. Luna was at the bottom of a pile, and four of the ducks were absolutely abusing her–like severely. Only Ferdinand and Anna Maria weren’t involved.

I ran to her, but she didn’t want to come to me. She took off, so I yelled at the ducks to knock off this nonsense and realized I had better start keeping a very close eye on Luna, though I thought I already was. For the rest of that day and another one, I checked on her about 20 times each day. It was steady. I didn’t see anything else, but yesterday morning, she was acting really strange. I found her away from the flock, and when I went to check on her, it seemed like she wanted me, which was a surprise. I told her I would be right back. I came inside to run a bath for her and went right back to get her. When I put her in the tub, I saw blood on her bill.

I couldn’t figure out what had happened, but after she was in the tub for a bit and her bill was cleaned, I could see the small cracks near the top, where her head meets the bill. I was devastated! I couldn’t believe the other ducks had done this much damage to her, and I couldn’t believe we were here.

A duck’s bill is far more sensitive that you might think. A duck’s bill has highly-sensitive nerves. I have seen the ducks out hunting at night with their bills to the ground. It’s really fantastic to see. Obviously, seeing Luna with a damaged bill was a big worry.

Her bill not only has some small cracks, there is a tiny missing chip from the outer area. I researched about what to do, so I treated her with antibiotic spray to prevent infection. I then had a talk with Ron about what this might mean.

There is a chance Luna may never be able to go back with her people. I found out later from our teenage son that he had to break up an attack on Luna the afternoon before I saw her injury, and he forgot to tell me about it. I told him to please, please tell me when things like that happen.

With these attacks in mind, at the very least, Luna is going to be in the house until spring. I hope we will be able to put her back with her flock, but she is going to have to heal a long time and is going to have to get used to the house right now. Hopefully, we will be able to integrate her back into the flock, but if she gets beat up again, the damage to her bill could be even greater. I don’t know how well it’s going to heal. I don’t know how sturdy a bill will get to be after an injury. I have been trying to research online to get more information, but I really don’t know a lot yet.

All I know for now is that we have to take care of that bill, and Luna is now walking around the house, making herself fairly at home. She’s walking so well now that she won’t stand for sitting her her little nest very much, so she marches those little webbed feet across our wood floors in the cutest manner you could imagine.