When Isabel and I went out to tuck the ducks in at 8 pm last night, I noticed that Romeo was sitting on the ground even when I walked into the goose pen. Just two hours earlier he was fine, but apparently between my visits he sprained his right leg. I picked him up and Isabel and I checked him to make sure it wasn't anything more serious. 

I checked on him again first thing this morning. He's walking, but with a heck of a limp. I gave him some Rimadyl to help with pain and swelling. He went swimming and was preening afterwards, so I'm sure he'll be okay, but I'll keep a close eye on him. Poor baby...

I've been working diligently on the upcoming September newsletter issue. Apparently Lake's Lacto-Plus probiotics isn't around anymore, so I had to do a lot of research to find a replacement product--and not just any replacement, we want the BEST for our ducks and geese. I finally found Avi-Culture and I corresponded back and forth with them and gathered up lots of useful information to incorporate into the newsletter--and they gave me permissions to use some of their photos/banners from their website. In exchange, they added us to their links and have made a generous offer to help keep us supplied with probiotics.

We also have a couple people selling feather products made out of molted feathers I have been collecting (and am still collecting) since June. It's actually quite a time consuming project from my end--bent over and scrounging the grounds for quality feathers twice a day. I hope it results in some funds for our sanctuary; otherwise, I don't know that I'll want to do this again. We'll see!

I'm a little worried that so much financial stuff ended up in the Sept issue. We have our own custom painted duck sign fundraiser alongside these two articles on feather products for sale and an article on our annual expenses. Since our checking account dropped to a record low (of the kind we haven't seen since we first started this endeavor), I wanted to give people an idea of how much this endeavor costs. Quite a few people came through for us in August and our checking account is back where it should be again, but we need a steady influx of funds to keep up with our everyday costs. We really don't want to tap into the sanctuary's savings account, which is reserved for our next expansion project and vet emergencies.

Hopefully the photos of the flock and a couple of the other articles will keep it from being too financial. And there's always that one redeeming article on bumblefoot and Avi-Culture to break it all up.

Pretty Alice on the water...

And then she makes a SPLASH!

When I began taking photos today, I noticed in the viewing screen that there was a white & hazy glow around Matthew. I've been taking photos with this camera for years and I've never seen this effect. 

You can sort of make out the hazy, white glow around Matthew in these photos:

Ghost of a duck... see it behind Matthew? Odd thing is the ghost doesn't match his image in this photo nor in the photos taken just before and just after this one--and he wasn't moving at the time either... just floating...