rain and shine

It’s a cold dreary light rain falling this morning.  I know we need the rain for the trees and perennials and to fill my pond but that doesn’t make it less miserable.  My old knees can’t take the slipping and sliding out in the mud behind the barn.  Most of the birds were inside this morning because of the rain but the turkey and duck dishes are still outside.  They all ran out to the dishes when they saw me.  I did put some feed down inside and I moved the 2 gallon water container inside.  Eventually it will all have to be moved inside but there are just so many ducks right now and ducks make such a mess with the water.

 More baby ducks hatched Wednesday, 13 of them.  It’s a cloud of fuzz balls with the 8 ducklings from last week and now these.  And of course there are 9 older ducklings which are starting to feather out.  The 2 younger groups keep getting mixed together which their mommas don’t like but the babies just follow whatever group they are close to. 

 On Thursday the newest mom had brought her bunch outside and the slightly older bunch started to follow their mom to the pond and some of the tinier ones were following.  I tried to head them off because I didn’t think they were ready for the long walk down the slope and would get lost or picked off.  I ended up catching all the tiny ones and putting them in a pen but their mom threw a fit and refused to go inside so after the bigger ducks were out of sight I let the little ones out.  They have managed to make it through the last few days of rain and mud and big birds stepping on them just fine.  I sure do hope we sell some soon.

 Tomorrow it’s supposed to be sunny and we are going to finish putting a tarp over the outside chicken run and enclose it for winter.  It won’t be clear plastic this year because that didn’t hold up over the summer for some reason.  I hope the blue tarp holds up to snow.  November is almost here and we need to get a lot of winterizing done yet.  Storm windows need to be put on the house and some weather stripping done.  I just have to get Steve pried away from baseball and football games.

 Sunday- we did get the tarp up over the chicken run.   That was fun.  You know how fun it is to work on a project with your spouse?  That kind of fun.  All that’s left now is to cover the south wall with clear plastic for winter.

 Interesting find was that one of the new young hens has been getting onto the rather deep barn window ledge about 5 feet off the ground and laying her eggs.  When I was on the ladder I spotted the pullet size brown eggs and removed them.   Until we cover the south side of the run she can probably get back up there so I will have to remember to check there.