May 13, 2001 ~ First entry
Okay, I have to be honest. The majority of this entry wasn't written on May 13. But this one sentence was:
"This Mother's Day was marked by the hatching of three duck eggs. Imagine that!"
Whew! There now. I feel better for having straightened that out. It would be awful to start this out with a lie, wouldn't it? I am nothing if not honest. Most of the time, anyway. (See? If I were DIShonest, I wouldn't have pointed that out.)
For something like two years now, a couple of friends have been encouraging me to start a journal. It's always seemed like a good idea, more or less; I just never seemed to find the time to get around to it. And what if no one read it? What would be the point? Well, I can think of a few good reasons for doing this, whether or not anyone else ever reads a single entry. If I write something from the heart, post it on a forum, and no one responds to it, sometimes it hurts my feelings. Sometimes I just yank the post from the board. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, not to expect a response? There's something incredibly freeing about that. Good writing or bad writing, all I have to do is write, put it out there, and I'm done. And I LIKE to write. I like to string the words together, rearrange them, twist them, squeeze them, gently encourage them to tell my story. Sometimes they cooperate, other times they don't. Maybe I'll get better at this, with practice. Maybe not. But the writing itself is a good thing. It's always helped to write.
If you don't know me yet, and if you continue to read this journal, I expect you'll soon know me well enough. Here's a little bit to get you started. My name is Carol. You didn't think my name was really Dakotah, did you? Dakotah is my black and white Paint horse. I'm forty-five years old, married, have two sons, and live on a small farm in East Texas. We have cows, horses, chickens, ducks, and plenty of cats. Lots and lots of cats. But I'm not one of those crazy cat ladies (am I?); most of these are barn cats who earn their keep by keeping the rodent population in check.
Back to May 13...
It doesn't take much to impress me. Mother's Day brought an unexpected joy... three baby ducklings hatched out. Is there anything on the planet cuter than a baby duck? Ducklings are clumsy things, cute fuzzy klutzes who constantly trip over their own feet and fall down a LOT.
Our two mama ducks also hatched three chicken eggs, so we have one nest, two mothers, and six babies, three of which don't actually belong to the mothers, but no one seems to mind. One of the ducklings, Scooter, has something wrong with his legs. Instead of walking on his feet, he waddles around on his entire legs. He scoots. Slowly. But he's hanging in there, and I don't suppose it matters how he walks, as long as it works for him.
That's enough for now. I hope you'll stick around.
Thanks for reading.
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