There's hope, after all.

Something happened today that has kept me going until the final stretch - I have 3 days left until the hatching should begin. Before I give up the good news, I am going to lay a big, fat disclaimer to those of you who may be considering attempting such a feat as hatching any type of bird in a homemade incubator: IT IS WAY MORE DIFFICULT THAN YOU WOULD EVER UNDERSTAND. Here are a few things that I never considered when I signed up for this:

1) Maintaining the temperature is not an easy task because there are so many outside variables that you cannot control. If you have a life, which I do, and it takes you away from your house a good portion of the day and the temperature high outside is say, 72 degrees, your incubator will be affected.

2.) You will not get as much sleep as you're accustomed to. This is due to constantly changing temperature and also egg rotation which must be done a minimum of 3-4 times a day. My alarm is set for 3:00 am every morning. There were many nights I would be up until 3:00 am because it happened to be a hot evening and the temperature kept raising every hour.

3.) Heartache. Because there are so many things you cannot control, your hatching rate will be lower than what is typical for a brood. I started out with 8 eggs, although 2 turned out to be infertile.There were 6 and then there were 2; that is a 30% hatch rate. This is assuming those 2 will pull through. So, my friends, it takes a tough skin and a lot of optimism.

4.) There will be naysayers. I've been lucky enough to have people that support me no matter what, however there were people who thought I was foolish. 

Of course, this is all in reference to the hatching process. I haven't even begun caring for actual ducklings yet so I have no idea what that will entail. So you want to know what the good news is? Do you want to know what happened while I was candling my last 2 eggs today?

I got a wave hello.

3 more days.