One of the Many Reasons I Heart Mr. B

I know the title of this post might be a little on the cheesy end. I shy away from public professions of how great (or not so great) my relationship is. I normally find those pictures on FB of the flowers that your guy sends you at work a little irritating. Perhaps that’s the jealous part of me, it’s been years since I got flowers at work; Mr. B. is just not that guy. But last night reminded me that there are gestures far sweeter than flowers at work or a romantic weekend getaway.  And so this post is what I hope is an entertaining story for you and a reminder for me.

A little back story on the duck situation.

The ducks were evicted from the house this past weekend.  For the past few weeks they have been spending the majority of the day outside it the “play pen” we constructed last year. However, up until last weekend I was bringing them back inside for the night.  Saturday they spent the evening outdoors, in the “play pen”.  Why not the coop you may ask. Well, the duckies are still small and I don’t completely trust the geese with them yet. Everyone will need to be put in the pecking order, I’m just afraid it might be rather violent with the ducks being so much smaller. So the first few nights outdoors went well. I cleaned out the mud room and got rid of the wet duck smell.  (They won’t be making candles in that scent anytime soon!!)

Ok now that we are all up to date on the duck situation – I can tell you why Mr. B is truly amazing..

Last night we got home from work just after a storm had rolled through with more to come. It was still drizzling of course I had to check on my babies. They were stressed!! Poor little guys, they needed to get someplace dry and out of the rain. I know how ridiculous that sounds they are ducks, but they are babies and don’t have all their big feathers yet! The geese BTW seemed unbothered by the rain/storm, but they are used to it. But what to do? Where to put them? I had reclaimed my mud room and put away all the brooding supplies. The geese don’t like them so hanging in the coop over night was not an option. Perhaps if I put a partition in the coop to keep the geese from them…

I’m scouring the shed to find something that will work. By now it’s raining again and Mr. B has collected the duckies in a wash basket and they are in the shed out of the torrential down poor.  I found a piece of fencing that would work, but the geese would be able to see the ducks and would probably heckle them all night. So not ideal. Mr. B finds some plywood two long pieces about 18inches high. Not high enough, the ladies can jump that. So Mr. B quickly devises a plan and sends me to the house for the tools. Mind you it is still down pouring, the dirt floor in the shed is all wet and mucky, there is crap for light, and no decent work space. But he is going to MacGyver a partition out of what we have.  And that is exactly what he did. Using the ATV as a work bench and me holding the spot light he cut and built the partition.

The duckies were tucked in and happy to be out of the storm. They were all asleep within a few hours. The geese put themselves to bed at dark and didn’t even notice the babies on the other half of their house. Or at least I don’t think they noticed. There was no commotion in there last night.

A happy ending to the duck situation - and that my friends is better than flowers at work.

They're Here!!

So much for the New Year’s Resolution, you know posting twice a week. It’s been three weeks since I wrote anything new. YIKES! And it’s not like there hasn’t been things going on. Oh my goodness there has been house projects, gardening, crafties, egg incubating, just to name a few.  That’s just it I get so caught up in crossing things off my to do list, I don’t have the energy to stop and share them with you. Just want to sit on the couch and veg out. Season three of Game of Thrones is out on DVD, need I say more.

Last time we talked I was telling you about the bestest mother’s day present to date: the incubator and eggs. I’m sure you can guess form the title of this post that they hatched. Saturday morning we woke up to three little peep-peeps fresh out of their eggs. The other seven followed by the afternoon. The days leading up were rather intense, I was so impatient to meet them and hold the little fuzzies. First we could see the eggs wobble and we could hear them peeping. Then they started to crack. We could see their little beaks trying to push out of the shell.

I am amazed that all ten hatched. I mean this is our first time incubating and I wasn’t sure we transported them right and there were so many things that could have gone wrong. 100% hatch rate on our first try, impressive. I was hoping for  5 to make it. Mr. B was a great ‘duck daddy’ (his words not mine) monitoring the incubator and rotating the eggs.

The past few days I’ve been enjoying the babies. Right now they are still staying in the house with a heat lamp. It gets too cold at night form them to be out by themselves. The other fur babies seem to be adjusting well to the fuzzies. Gus is in love with them, but jealous if I seem to give them more attention them him. Erwin has been banished from the mudroom. I’m afraid we would want to play with them, with his claws out.

Monday night Mr. B and I brought them outside so they could help me in the gardens. Somehow I managed to be the one to turn the soil and do all the planting, while Gus and Mr. B laid in the grass and played with these cuties.

 

 

 

If you follow me on Facebook, you probably have seen the super adorable video of them in the tub. OMG I almost died from the cuteness.

Dispatching of the Ducks

It's been a while. Like over a week awhile. Don't worry all is good, we have been super-duper busy. I have so much I want to show you and tell you about! But first I need to tell you about the not so fun part. The ducks, all fifteen of them, no longer wonder around the yard digging craters and munching on bugs. They now reside in neatly packed food saver bags in our freezer. 

Mr. B's parents and brother came down Friday afternoon and helped us with the deed. It isn't something I would like to do again any time soon. Let's just say I had some not so pleasant images of bloody decapitated duckies that night when I went to bed. My poor babie birdie wordies.

Thank goodness we had people there to help. I didn't have to do the deed myself or clean them, thanks Rick and Andy! I just had to dunk 'em in the hot water and pluck the buggers. Have you ever plucked a duck? It's not a fun task. (there are some amazing step-by-step tutorials out there if on home butchering in case you were wondering. I studied up before D-day.) 

It needed to be done. We couldn't keep all twenty-one birds over the winter. We just couldn't; the food and water supply isn't there. We hadn't planned on all of them making it to the fall when we got them. Last year our survival rate was less than a third. When we ordered the babies in the spring we had planned on mother-nature doing more of her thing, you know, survival of the fittest.  She didn't so we needed to. 

Mr. B and I had a long discussion about who would stay and who would be sacrificed for the good of the many. We were going to keep a few ducks to hopefully replenish the flock in the spring but after some research we learned that runner ducks aren't the greatest at hatching and raising their own young. So after much consideration it was agreed on that they all would go. Then it came time for the to decide about the geese. We even went so far as to sex the geese to make sure we had a good ratio of males to females. We picked out one. We named him Christmas. 

Funny story about Christmas. We had dispatched all of the ducks and it was Christmas's turn at the chopping block. Andy, Mr. B's brother entered the run to catch him. We had kept the chosen few in the run for the morning to make it easier to ketch them. So any way Andy is chasing Christmas around the run and that silly goose gets up some speed, flaps his wings, and flew the coop. After that I didn't have the heart to have the boys chase him down. We let him live. No Christmas goose for us this year. 

So that is that. We offed all of our ducks and kept the six geese. Now if any of you have some good recipes for duck don't hesitate to share. 

I Felt Bad, But Only for a Minute

Last night, like every other night, a while after it was dark I ventured outside to lock up the birds. Remember the birds have free range during the day but at night they get lock up in their fortress. I was trying to coax them inside and they were being sassy. The would would just walk back and forth in front to the gate. That wasn't like them at all. Normally I just have to walk them in the general direction of the coop and they all go right in, the ducks enter as a large mob and the geese single file after the ducks.

While I was trying to coax them without getting them all worked up I saw something. It was a shadow figure on the other side of the fence. After a second look I thought it might be a cat. I went quickly up to the house to get the flash light for a closer look. Quickly because what ever it was looked like it might be trying to stalk my babies and I didn't want to be too late.

I grabbed the flash light off the counter and yelled at Mr. B that something was stalking the birds. I was barely outside and he comes running out behind me with the twenty-two. It must be the possibility of shooting something is much more appealing that playing a video game, I've never seen him put down a game that quick!

The birds were still pacing, but they were all ok. You could tell they were nervous. When we came up with the flash light they ran to the other end of the yard by their pool. They don't like the light shinning at them, it really makes them nervous. Don't ask my why, they are silly birds. I pointed the light into the run and there was a raccoon climbing the fence.

Mr. B and I positioned ourselves, me shinning the light on it and Mr.B the twenty-two. The coon was now in the crab apple tree. He really didn't stand a chance, he didn't try to run away, just sat up there staring at us. It was a clean shot and a quick death. I let myself feel bad for a minute. But then it hit me. That coon climbed into the run. He was stalking my babies. He climbed over the fence like it was nothing and was hanging out three feet from were my birdies spend the night. I couldn't let that fly. It was like he had been there before. He wasn't that big so maybe he was coming and looking for eggs. But soon that small coon would be a fatty-Mcfat-fat and eggs would no longer be a good snack. He would move on to something more filling, like one of my ducks.

And we can't have anything munching on one of my ducks! This mama goose won't stand for that.

Pep Talk

I had to give the kids a talking to this morning. The kids being the birdies. We talked about staying close to home, preferably in our yard or at least so they can see the house. We also had a good discussion about stranger danger.

This morning at 9am duck hunting opens.

Lookie What I found

I was mowing the lawn on Saturday. I was in the home stretch, mowing the last part of the lawn over by the duck pool. I saw something in the grass. I stopped the lawn mower and cut the power. I jumped off and snatched it up and ran over by Mr. B. Holding it up I shouted at him. Shouted because I was supper dupper excited and I had ear plugs in.

I found an egg.

A duck egg.

The first one.

I thought I better have a look in the coop. Wouldn't you know I found three more.

Four eggs.

The ladies are starting to pull their own weight. No more free ride for them.

Now we have a new project for the list. Build nest boxes so that the ladies get the idea were to lay. I think they are just dropping them wherever they are standing right now.

We didn't get to see how tasty they were. With out knowing how long they had been sitting I didn't want to risk it. I will be checking the coop every day now. I heard duck eggs are awesome for baking and I have had a hankering for cake..