D434 The Nutquacker and D435 The Sugar Plum Ducky were created  by Cheryl and Craig for the Ho! Ho! Ho! A Season of Caching event on December 17, 2011.

Created by Craig for the ornament exchange at the Ho! Ho! Ho! A Season of Caching 3 4 event on December 17, 2011.

Team-Ducky makes duckies for events they attend.  The Ho! H0! Ho! event traditionally has an ornament exchange.

Team-Ducky discovered at the first Ho! Ho! Ho! event they attended that duckies make great ornaments!

Cameo: Blue_Pfenix with her new Christmas Ducky Ornament

Congratulations to Blue_Pfenix for choosing the Sugar Plum Ducky in the exchange.

Created by Cheryl for the ornament exchange at the Ho! Ho! Ho! A Season of Caching 3 4 event on December 17, 2011.

Team-Ducky tries to make a ducky or two for every geocaching event they attend (attending events counts as finding a geocache, so leaving a ducky is appropriate–and fun!)

(Cameo: Monet 37 w/ her new Christmas Tree Ornament, La Vaca Verde in background.)

At the annual Ho! Ho! Ho! event, people are invited to wrap up an ornament for a secret exchange.  (This is Team-Ducky’s 2nd Ho! Ho! Ho! event, at the first one we attended, we made Jingle and Jangle, Ducky Elves.)  Congrats to Monet37 for picking up the Nutquacker for her tree.

The classic (egg) shell game... which shell has the smiley?

Created by Craig as the First To Find prize for Team-Ducky’s 28th cache hide, “Another (Egg) Shell Game.”

One Smiley, Two Frowns... move the (egg) shells round and roun'

This cache is a replacement for the original (Egg) Shell Game, which was busted by the man.

Follow the Shel with your eyes and you'll claim the smiley prize.

The cache is made up of three identical magnetic reflectors, each attached to one of three identical road signs.  The trick is guessing which cache holds the log book.

Once a geocacher has made the find and signed the log, they can shuffle the containers and replace them so the next cacher can guess as well.

Conrgrats to Tundra Wolf for being the First to Find!

(photo by Tundra Wolf)

Created by Craig as the First-To-Find prize for Team-Ducky’s 27th cache, “The Empty Nest.”  Published on December 17, 2011.

(photo by Tundra Wolf)

The Empty Nest is a cache placed in tribute to the best cache we have put out, The Hatchery, which was lost in the floods of 2011.  The 5 gallon bucket contained a camera, a large vinyl MaMa Ducky that served as the sign-in log, a bag of sharpie markers, and a bunch of duckies and ducky eggs decorated by cache visitors.   All washed away in the flood….

(Photo by Tundra Wolf)

BUT, imagine our surprise when we hid the The Empty Nest and found The Hatchery back where it started, sort of.  Some anonymous person found it and returned it to the tree beside its previous location.  The contents were a bit damp and mildewy, but the film in the camera was mostly salvageable and MaMa Ducky was returned to the Ducky Pond.

There will be a new Hatchery some time next year.

Congratulations to Tundra Wolf for the First to Find on this cache.  (Thanks for the photos.)

Created by Craig for El Fartero’s Golden Stinker on December 3, 2011.

The cache is a golden ammo can stuffed with golden sparkly swag in celebration of El Fartero’s 1,000 geocache finds.

La Vaca Verde, El Fartero's better half

The cache container was created and stocked by by La Vaca Verde and the cache was written up and hidden by Softball29.

* The original ducky was created in the field– but Team-Ducky had appointments to make and a hike back to the Ducky-Mobile…and in middle of the creation process, the golden paint marker leaked all over the ducky. So, we dropped the misfit ducky in the cache and allowed Tundra Wolf to virtually snarf it.  Then we made a new, proper ducky back at the Ducky-Pond and gave it to Tundra Wolf at the Ho Ho Ho event.

Best Gifts: Equality, Peace, & Love

Created by Craig for The Giving Tree cache on December 3, 2011.  A very cool cache with a good theme, inspired by a horrible book.  (I much prefer this story…)

Congratulations to Wardrums for finding and adding the Giving Duck to his growing collection.

Math Puzzle Cache? Sounds like a job for Team-Ducky's Secret Weapon!

Created by Cheryl for That ALGEBRA Cache on November 25, 2011.

...Secret Weapon: Dad (a.k.a. PaPa Ducky)

Team-Ducky makes a habit of avoiding most puzzle caches– but PaPa Ducky was visiting for Thanksgiving.

No ruler needed for these problems.

PaPa Ducky is a retired math teacher.  UU Jester and PaPa Ducky had the problems solved in no time at all.

Papa Ducky also likes Origami

The hardest part of the cache, other than climbing the hill back to Flash, was fitting the ducky into the cache.

Fortunately, PaPa Ducky knows advanced geometry and duckies are pliant students.

Created by Craig for the Oneida County High Points multi-cache on November 12, 2011.  Chef Ducky and UU Jester (of Team-Ducky) brought their houseguest, and budding new cacher-to be, Kiya, along for a caching adventure with LCSM.  Part one of the cache is on the highest point in Oneida county.  The final cache is on the top of the 2nd highest point.

Chef Ducky and Kiya wait for UU Jester and LCSM to return with the smiley.

The hill was steep and the freshly fallen snow was messy and slick.  Kiya found part one (congrats!)  The climb down and up to the final as a bit too daunting, so Kiya and Chef Ducky returned to Vultan, the T-D Cruiser, while LCSM and UU Jester made the trek.

They left a friend to greet cachers on their return trip to the car.

LCSM snarfed the ducky for her growing collection.

Created by Cheryl for Tornado Alley on November 6, 2011.

UU Jester tried to bushwhack to this cache, but that proved to be a very bad idea.

Release the Flying Monkeys!