Another scorching day of heat wave. ICK! It's supposed to cool down here soon..today I floated down the canal again and I came upon a pair of ducklings. One of them freaked out and peeped and paddled ahead of me before finally turning around to rejoin its sibling..it paddled in high gear, quacking the whole way. Then basically the exact same thing happened with a deer! Only this time it was between the bridges - so I'm fairly confident in saying it was a different deer. It was standing in the water near the bank browsing on the overhanging vegetation and didn't hop out until I was about 20 ft. away. Crazy. I guess since it's been so hot the deer are using the canal to stay cool too - I was surprised to see them in the middle of the day, but then again, there's usually no one up there mid-afternoon on a weekday. I suppose the deer know this.

Today I did a lot of crappy work. I cleaned out a room of the barn which had been accumulating mouse droppings for 17 years (I did have hanta virus protection in the form of a mask). And then I cleaned our chicken coop. FUN. Next week I get to water stuff and feed animals for the Fosters, which means fresh blueberries and raspberries.
See top of blog for adorable screech owl.