Ducks and Stuff

I may have mentioned before that we had a wild mallard pair visiting the backyard pond on a daily basis.  Momma Mallard decided the floating duckhouse would be the perfect place to lay her eggs.  Last Wednesday Momma Mallard emerged with 14 ducklings in tow!  A week later they are starting to explore a little on their own, but still sticking really close to Momma.  We can expect them to be here for a couple of months before they grow their wings and fly off to do their own thing.  It's so awesome!  Here is Momma Mallard with 10 of the babies (the other 4 must have been on her other side):

I am now 3 weeks out from surgery and feeling great.  I'm pretty much back to normal aside from some remaining sensitivity, but my oncologist says that should go away within the next couple of weeks.  The pathology report came back good and they think they got everything.  I start radiation treatments next week to zap anything they  may have missed.  It's every weekday for 5 1/2 weeks.  The kicker of it is I drive 45 minutes one way to get a 2 minute treatment - ha!  Luckily there aren't many side effects from radiation, so the only things that might happen is a sunburn like area at the treatment location and possibly some fatigue towards the end of the treatment rounds. I start on Tamoxifin next week as well, which I will be on for 5 years as a preventative to the breast cancer recurring.  All in all, I'm pretty good to go!

I did make a good accomplishment last month regarding my Flickr Photography Scavenger Hunt.  For the first time in the 2 years I've been playing I actually completed a round!  And my challenge photos got the most votes, to boot!  A silly feat, but a fun one.  You can see all of my photos and the scavenger hunt list if you want.  :)

And now that we have our first day of no rain in I don't know how long, I'll try to get some updated duckling photos to post.  :)