Sprained Wrist and Another Missing Duck

Well, yesterday was a bit of a bad day for me.

In the morning, I went down to the front pond to break the ice in the "duck pool" area (the "duck pool" is a kiddie pool size area that I have been breaking the ice on daily so the ducks can grab a quick swim. ). We had about an inch of snow overnight and I misstepped and stepped onto the thin ice area and boom, I went straight through into the pond. Damn

I now know that the pond is about 3 feet deep about 2 feet from shore.

Falling into the pond sucks, but it's not the end of the world cause the house is only a 30 second walk away. Unfortunately, I hit my wrist when I fell and woke up today with it badly bruised and swollen. I think it's sprained, but not sure. I put ice on it and have now wrapped it. If it gets worse, I'll head to the hospital. It's definitely not broken.

To make the day worse, Peanut, my last Muscovy girl has disappeared. Mama Muscovy and the new duck Figgy are still there, but Peanut is gone. We searched all over yesterday, no signs of struggle, no blood, no feathers, nothing.

I have no idea where she went :( I'll of course keep looking!

These Muscovy ducks are killing me. They are really hard work. The ducks in general are WAY more work than the chickens are.

Sigh ... good thing they are so cute.

Hope you all had a nice Holidays! Hugs and love!!

Photo Box and Etsy

I've been working away on my Etsy store, and I've been working away on a friend's Etsy store, and I've also been adding a friend's stuff to my Etsy store ... Oh my! The work really never stops.

As you know I opened a Etsy store a couple of months ago and I have slowly been adding products to it. A friend of mine wanted to open an Etsy store and didn't know how to do it, so I'm helping her get her products in her store. She has a lot more products than I was expecting! I've already put on close to a hundred products. Thankfully I think I'm almost done and its always nice to help!

Another friend sent me a pile of chainmail stuff they couldn't sell, so I spent the last two days putting all of it on to my store. It takes me about 15 minutes to place each ad (taking photos;cropping photos; adding photos; filling out the ad; researching shipping prices etc), so it's a lot of hours of boring tedious work.

I was having a horrible time taking quality photos of the chainmail jewelry so I made a photo box ...

To make a photo box, I simply used an old small clear plastic bin. I cut a spot in the top to lay a light, and taped white paper to the back and floor. It was super easy and works great!

This pic shows the spot I cut for the light

And here's the light being placed into the space I cut for it

And here's the finished light box! It made a huge difference on the photos!

So here's my improved Etsy store!

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheHappyHippieHaven

the Dwarven Hall Forge is my Friend's stuff. Check out the whips he makes!

Hugs and love!

My New Muscovy Duck

Duck, Duck, Goose

On Monday past we had a big snow storm. My three Muscovy ducks; Mama Muscovy, Peanut and Popcorn (her two daughters) were at the back pond. Mama Muscovy is very stubborn and refuses to go in the coop. Her two daughters always listen to her :(

I checked the Muscovies Monday late morning, just when the storm was starting. I brought them some food and as normal they came over, tail wagging and ate. I patted Peanut and Popcorn. I told them to be safe and I left them I spent the rest of the day fighting to keep my driveway clear for the Fedex guy (bringing the heater). 

When I went to check on and take food to the Muscovy ducks Tuesday morning only Peanut was there. Mama Muscovy and Popcorn had disappeared. The pond is 99.9% frozen (or was then) so I walked all the way around the pond calling for them. They always come swimming/flying over to "duck, duck, goose" I couldn't find them anywhere.

We caught Peanut and brought her up to the other ducks, the Saxony and Indian Runners, so she wouldn't be alone. Muscovy ducks are pretty snotty; they only like other Muscovy ducks. They don't seem to like other ducks breeds. Muscovy ducks are racist! :) I swear my Muscovy ducks think the Saxony ducks and Indian Runners are complete idiots. They tend to keep their distance.

We spent hours every day during the week searching for the two missing ducks. Couldn't find them anywhere.

On Thursday, Peanut the lone Muscovy was so depressed and lonely I decided to put an ad on Kijiji to see if I could find her a Muscovy friend. Friday night I got an email from the lady at the feed store in New Glasgow; she has a Muscovy for me. 

Saturday morning we picked up the Muscovy. She's a lovely white and black. Her and Peanut got along immediately. 

About an hour after we got the new Muscovy home, who shows up at the back pond, but Mama Muscovy! Holy shit! 

It took us about two hours to catch Muscovy Mom. During that time we fell (through the ice into the pond or from the ice into several inch deep puddles of ice water) at least 50 times (no exaggeration). We chased Muscovy mom from one side of the pond and back again (and again and again and again). We managed to herd her into the forest where she couldn't take flight. We are all wet, frozen, bruised and battered, and downright exhausted. Trying to catch a duck that doesn't want to be caught that can fly is brutal hard! Damn her and her awesome flying ability! Damn us and not being able to fly! But YAY!! for human intelligence and determination. WE WON!

Mama Muscovy is now safely at the front pond with her daughter Peanut and the new Muscovy lass Figgie. 

There was no sign of the other missing Muscovy today. We will keep looking!

Mr Heater Review

This is my Mr Heater propane cabinet heater. It hooks up to one of the large BBQ propane tanks. The heater has three settings- low, medium and high, and produces some serious heat. It came 98% assembled, all I had to do was put the bottom on and the wheels. The wheels actually work pretty good. There is a small propane smell when the heater is used, but the heater has a low oxygen shut off, so if the oxygen levels in the house drops too low the heater will immediately shut down. I also have a CO2 detector just to be extra safe.

This heater makes about as much heat as a woodstove does. It is super hot when you are close up, even the cats sit at least two feet away. If you get too close you will get burnt! It is hot and would start a fire quickly if something touched it. 

It's a great warm heater, but definitely dangerous and needs to be taken very seriously. I would not suggest it for a home with young children. I would recommend it for my off-grid friends in need of more heat and for my camping friends.

The Mr Heater cabinet heater cost about $200

 This is the back of the heater. As you can see the propane tank fits nicely in the back. It was super easy to hook up.

This is the Buddy Mr Heater. It takes one of the little cans of propane (which can get pretty expensive), you could also cheat and get the hook up hose to use one of the big tanks of propane. I haven't use it yet, so cannot give a review on heat produced. It looks a great size for camping. The Mr Heater buddy heater costs around $120

This is the electric space heaters I usually use. I like them cause they are nice and safe. The cats can actually sleep right against it and not get burnt. These heaters cost about $0.10 an hour to run and do a solid job keeping a room moderately warm (not super warm)

My Heater Hoopla

The old farm house I lived in near Sarnia had oil heat; it cost $800-$1000 to fill the oil tank and even with me keeping the thermostat as low as possible I still went through a tank every 2 months. That's $400-$500 a month for heat! I found getting a few good electric space heaters worked better and cost my half that oil cost me.

My new Nova Scotia home of course has oil heat ...sigh. What a pain in the butt. Oil here in Nova Scotia is about the same price as in Ontario, so I figured I wouldn't even bother with it. I figured I'd get a couple of good electric space heaters.

The two electric space heaters I have work ok, but they are not enough for really cold days, and of course when the power goes out, which is does a lot here in Nova Scotia, they don't work. 

I decided I needed a third heater, one not run by electricity. I researched the crap out of it and found a propane heater was by far the best way for me to go (comparing price/safety/heat generated etc). 

There are only a few companies that sell portable propane heaters, I found it was a toss up between Mr Heater and DynaGlow. Mr Heater has a better section of propane heaters than Dynaglow does, but Mr Heater had a fair amount of complaints about the pilot light not staying on, on their heaters. However, DynaGlow also had similar complaints 

Both Mr Heater and DynaGlow sell a propane cabinet heater for around $200. I decided that was the style of heater that was best suited for me. I checked all over New Glasgow and sadly no one sold one. All I could find in New Glasgow was Mr Heater's small buddy heater, which was not what I wanted. To get a cabinet propane heater I had to order it online.

Home Depot offered the DynaGlow cabinet heater for $199.99 with free shipping. Home Hardware offered the Mr Heater cabinet heater for $194.99 with instore pick up. The Home Hardware is in Stellarton about a ten minute drive from me. I picked buying the Mr Heater from Home Hardware as the online reviews gave me the impression the Mr Heater was better than DynaGlow, and I thought Home Hardware was a more trustworthy company than Home Depot was ....

I ordered online on Saturday, November 28. Home Hardware took my money on the Monday, said it should be in, in 3-7 days from the order date. 

Around 4pm on the tenth day, I finally get the email it's in. yay! I'm so excited! and just in time! It's suppose to be -20 with the wind chill in just a couple of days,

My son headed into Stellarton first thing in the morning to pick up the heater. He got home with the box, we carefully put the bottom on, hooked up the propane tank and the pilot light would not stay on. As soon as I let go of the knob thing it went out. :(

We googled the problem, did their whole trouble shocking thing. Heck, I went to the store and got a whole new tank of propane just encase our tank was too low. Nope,  nothing worked. The pilot light would not stay on. 

Well, that's just depressing.

We carefully took the wheels back off, packed the stupid heater back up in the box, and my son took it back to the store.The customer service person not only wouldn't take it back , he was rude and insulting to my son! He told my son that because we had ordered it online we had to return it via online.

My son came home incredibly upset. I cried. I was so upset. All the upset made my sarcodoisis flare up big time, so in addition to being horribly upset I also ended up in major pain :(

All I'm thinking is now I'm going to have to wait Gods know how many days to get my money back so I can order yet another heater. How long is all that going to take? Another ten days?  It was Wednesday night, we have -20 temps on Saturday, that doesn't leave me enough time to get a new heater. 

And how dare someone be rude to my son!! When he was polite and did absolutely nothing wrong! Seriously, I'm a mom, anyone who is rude to my son I want to beat the crap out of! 

So, I freaked. I had a meltdown and I yelled at every person I could find to yell at. I wrote Home Hardware a nasty email and demanded a full refund immediately. I found the Home Hardware Facebook group and bitched on there. I found the Mr Heater Facebook group and bitched on there and gave them a really horrible review on their heater. 

Mr Heater responded almost immediately to my freak out and apologized for their heater not working. They stepped right up to the plate and told me they would overnight Fedex me a brand new heater immediately. They had hoped to get it here before the weekend's cold spell. I sat here all day Friday waiting for the heater to show up and yep, you guessed it, it never showed up :(

Meanwhile, Home Hardware head office has emailed me and has apologized. They forwarded my very upset email to the owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware. The owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware was fantastic. The rude employee was fired and the owner gave me my money back in cash. 

The weekend went by, no Mr Heater. Monday I spent the whole afternoon fighting to keep my driveway clear just encase Fedex showed up (we had a snow storm on Monday, got a bit more than half a foot of snow)

Tuesday, the Fedex guy showed up around 9am.

Not only did Mr Heater send me an awesome new cabinet heater they also sent me a Mr Buddy heater! FOR FREE! WOW! That's basically $300 worth of heater for free! YAY! What an amazing company!

The heater works FANTASTIC! Holy shit! I should of got one of these years ago, they rock! It gives off HUGE heat! I'll do a full review on the heaters on my next post as I think they would be great for my off-grid and camping friends.

So, it took me from Nov 28-December 13 to get the heater I wanted. It cost me a shit load of tears, upset, frustration and yelling, but I finally got it! And I actually got it for free. WOW!

I am happily warm :)

New Rescues

Good day wonderful friends! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

I got two new rescues on Sunday, a dog and cat combo.The dog is a three year old Beagle/Husky cross, and the cat is a two year old grey tabby. The dog, Lulu is a real sweetheart, very gentle and kind, but she is very poorly trained and very hand shy. She's nervous around fellas as her original owner (who was a guy) hit her.

Sigh ... if you need to hit a dog to get dominance you are doing it wrong! I have been doing dog rescue a good twenty years now and I have NEVER had to hit a dog ! NEVER! And I take in problem dogs! Dogs require a solid dependable pack leader. A dog should respect you, not fear you. The moment you hit a dog you went from respect to fear. If I can retrain an adult dog with aggression issues without ever hitting the dog, there is absolutely no reason everyone else cannot raise and train a puppy without violence.

So this is Lulu. She's a cutie. She's just a bit taller than my Pug and weighs about 40 pounds.

And this is the kitty. She doesn't have a name yet (I wasn't told her name when she was dropped off)

They are both awfully scared right now. It must be horrible to be taken from your home and dumped off with a stranger :(  They'll take a week or two to settle in, but they'll be fine. They are now surrounded by love :)

Have a great Monday! Hugs and love!!

Busy Week

Hi! Hope you all had a great week!

Mine was crazy busy. I pretty well got nothing done, but my driveway.

Last Sunday we got quite the ice storm, I spent Monday cleaning up from it. My driveway was drive-able Tuesday till about supper time than it was covered in a bout a foot of snow. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shoveling.

Between an 800 foot driveway and a foot of very heavy wet snow, I had to focus completely on it and my critters, no time for anything else.

It's Saturday morning now and thankfully my driveway is drive-able again. I have some offline work early afternoon, but plan on spending the day catching up on all the computer work I fell behind on.

I am looking forward to a mellow day. My body hurts all over from shoveling. It could really use a couple of days off.

Here's some pics from the last couple of days:

The first pic is of Kappa Cove- the small front pond.

This one is of my Muscovy gals on the ice at the back pond. Muscovy mom has been taking great care of her two daughters and they are really enjoying the back pond.

 This is Turtle Lane. I shared a similar pic on my last post. The trees on my last post were covered with ice, now they are covered in snow. I am happy to report that sense this pic was taken all trees have been cleaned off and the trees are back upright again.