Ducklings - A Story

Take a good close look at this little guy.  Does it look as though he's struggling to survive?

Here's another angle of him.  Seems perfectly healthy to me.  But that was not what the store that had this duckling told 2 young men who were there to appreciate the spring birds.  The story I was told by the young men was the store had said this duckling was slower than his counterparts and they did not expect him to make it.  So they were going to just "throw him out."  Yes, that was verbatim for what the guys told me that afternoon after they knocked on my front door and handed me a small cardboard box containing this little guy.  Apparently their grandfather lived down the road and knew I kept ducks, so instructed the young men to bring the little one to me.  At this point I had to tell them that I didn't have ducks, I had geese, but that I'd had ducks in the past.

Mentally my shoulders dropped, I didn't really want ducks, not my favorite avian species for personal reasons, but I was not about to turn this little guy away.  So I took him from the young men, put him on a heating pad with some crushed chicken feed and a tiny bowl of water while I fired up the brooder.  His story has since been told all around and he is thriving.

I lucked out though, after having placed an ad on CL several days ago asking anyone for another young duck to act as companion to Neitzche (name of the duckling, yes I named him.  LOL), I just happened across an ad today with an offer of free ducklings to anyone that was interested from a photographer whose lined-up-home for the babies had fallen through.  They were a week old.  Perfect!!  So I went and picked them up this evening.

But only one of these lucky babies will get to stay with Neitzche, the rest will be offered to other homes.  After all, I don't really like ducks!!

Gardening

I'm hoping to actually get all my gardens in the ground this year on time.  I never seemed to manage it in the past.  But this year, I have a head start.  With the help  (mostly) of my oldest girl, I managed to not only turn, but to actually plant the house-side garden today.  Here's what went into that garden:

Top to bottom:
- 3 Brussel sprout plants
- 4 rows of Kholrabi
- 3 Buttercrisp lettuce plants and 6 rows of seeds for the same
- 2 rows of mustard
- 2 rows of spinach
- 5 1/2 rows of collards
- 6 broccoli plants and 2 rows of seeds for the same

I also turned the soil around the back and half the sides of my shed and put in the started onions I'd gotten.  I also put a few pieces of garlic there as well, to finish out the row.

Then I turned a row of soil along the yard retaining wall and planted another 35 sections of garlic there as well.

I had gotten 2 horseradish roots and put them in a small depression in the yard where a tree had once been (but whose stump had long since rotted away).  I also brought out my comfrey plant and put it in a similar depression about 10 feet away from the horseradish.

The asparagus bed was looking sad, so I had my eldest rake out the leaves, weed it well, and plant the 11 new roots I had picked up.

Next week-end, if the weather cooperates, I plan on turning the secondary garden and putting in the potatoes.  At some point I also want to add some more blueberry plants, blackberry canes, strawberries (as soon as I figure out a better placement for them), a couple more rhubarb plants, and another pawpaw (they do better in multiples).  I had my eldest transplant the raspberry cane that popped up in the asparagus bed over to the berry patch, then had my youngest girl create a special barrier for the young cane so it's not accidentally damaged by unsuspecting people.

Sometime this week or next I'll setup several seed pots to start peppers, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers indoors to be transplanted sometime next month.

And that's it for now!!  Busy, busy to prep for spring.

Spinning!

Is so much fun!! 

You start with something like this:

Then you spend hours working it like this:

Until you have it all spun into 2 or 3 (or more) singles:

Then finally you ply the singles together to make your yarn:

Cavies!

Baby cavies born today.  I thought I was photographing 2, but #3 was peeking out from under mama.

See him in the back?  Maybe a closeup is in order...

There he is!!  Peekaboo!