...sometimes even a single feather is enough to fly. (Robert Maclean)

6.21.2013

impromptu duckling swim...

The ducklings loooove sliding along on their bellies in our little shallow stream so much
that we just couldn't resist this idea that we found online... 
 
We found some folks on poultry forums who have said it's perfectly okay for young ducklings
who don't have the naturals oils of their duck mother to go for a safe little swim like this...
 
So we set up some paint roller trays and filled them with water from our pond.
We also sprinkled some mealworms all over the water.
You can see they went wild for them and didn't stop until every last worm was had!
 
Today was a pretty hot day, so we felt comfortable going on this little adventure knowing
that they shouldn't get too chilled from the water.
Their chicken mothers kept a close eye on them and even joined in on the fun,
but they don't like to go in the water...



And after all of that mealworm-gobbling-swimming-adventure the little duckies needed to clean up...
 
 
 
They were so happy...


And the Mammas seem happy with a good day's work...
Every day is a new adventure with their wacky water-loving offspring!

 
p.s.  Happy Summer Solstice!!!
 

6.17.2013

hens co-parenting ducklings

(Imagine the Brady Bunch theme song, if you will...)
 
Here's the story of a lovely lady
who was bringing up one lovely little duckling on her own.
The duckling was gold, not at all like it's mother,
it gets a little funky when you pair a chicken with a duck.
 
 
and
Here's the story of a hen named Commie
who was busy bringing up two ducklings of her own...
There were three of them living in the coop all together
yet they were all alone.
 
 
Till one day when out in the yard,
Jersey met Commie
and they knew that it was much more than a hunch,
That this group must somehow form a family.
That's the way they became the Chicken-Duckling Bunch!
 
-----------------------------
 
So, here's the update: 
 
Both mammas started to venture out of their respective nesting spots yesterday...
 
This picture below here is of their first encounter of each other and the other ducklings.
You can see they were on guard -- Jersey is all puffed up and making her broody warning sounds, which roughly seem to translate as "stay away from my baby... or else!"
 
 
We were very worried because we had read stories about rival chicken mothers,
attacking each other and even going after the other mamma's babies...
 
We held our breath...
There were a couple of squawks and domination pecks exchanged
but then things gradually got more and more calm.
 
We still had our reservations about it, so we checked in on them all day long
to make sure everything was going alright.
 
As the day went on, we noticed them and their ducklings begin to hang out together.
 
As night came, to our great surprise, Commie gave up her nesting spot in the coop
to nest next to Jersey in her ramshackle outdoor bin...
 
Look at them, sleeping peacefully next to eachother with their babies warm underneath!
 
 
This morning, we noticed that the babies are SHARING the mothers,
and the mothers are sharing the babies and taking responsibility for protecting all of them.
 
(If only some of my students could learn about sharing and getting along
in such a short period of time!)
 
Needless to say, we are tickled beyond belief -- to our total astonishment and delight,
they have become a little blended family!
 
We've got two chickens co-parenting ducklings.
It's wacky, but it works!
 
I like to think that maybe they picked up on the vibe of our whole home here,
which is all about two ladies having a lot of fun together in life.
 
 
Or maybe they realized that parenting alone is no easy task...
Here, Commie is taking a little break while Jersey takes over the duckling-warming-duties.
 
 
 
 And then they had some romps in the mud all together.
It was like a trip to an amusement park.
 
 
The ducklings go absolutely gaga for water and mud...!
They dip their whole beaks in and fish around like they're going to find a treasure.
 
We have to be careful not to let them in deep water just yet.
They could drown easily and they don't have the natural oils
that their duck mothers would have spread over them to help waterproof them... 
 
 
It's so much FUN playing in the mud with your family!
 
Stay tuned for more updates on the Chicken-Duckling Bunch...
 
 
 
 
 


6.09.2013

getting our hatch on...!

 
 
When we went out to the coop this morning, Boo found this duck eggshell
and we thought -- oh no! what happened?!!! 
We thought the worst for a split second... that perhaps one of the other hens ate the egg...
  
But it was broken and empty for the best reason possible...!
We lifted up our broody hen and found that our very first sweet little "chuckling" has arrived!
 
 
I'll notify Websters about the need to add a new definition to chuckling in the dictionary.
Not just a verb anymore, chuckling is also a noun...
chuckling = duckling with a chicken mamma
 

We are swooning with delight,
and so is the chicken mamma.
 
 
wobbly wobbly
on those webbed feet!
 

When I was in the coop,
the little chuckling spent some time exploring
but never more than a few inches from mamma...
 
It's so sweet to watch them interact...
our chicken is a very tolerant mamma.


 
The other girls were bothering the new mamma in the coop so much,
that we decided to close the door and shut them out for the day
so she and the baby (hopefully babies soon!) 
could have some much needed peace and quiet.
 
 
There are plenty of other places for other hens to lay their eggs...
We have nesting boxes set up all over the place:
 
 
(They're just fussy hens and have their favorite place to go lay, which is of course
where the mamma's nest is...  Oh well, they'll have to use their coping skills
and figure out how to deal with it!)
 
 
And then there's our good girl Jersey who has been sitting on some duck eggs, too...
Hers should be on roughly the same hatching schedule as the other clutch, so we'll see!
She has taken up residence in an old dog house...
 
 
So far, so good!
Stay tuned for more chuckling reports!
 
 

5.26.2013

the perils of early gardening

Maybe I got a little too zealous about getting seeds started this year?
Maybe my grow light set-up is super efficient?
 
Or maybe I was a little off schedule with my dates, but I don't think so...
I charted my plans out according to our last average frost date, and worked from there.
I've nurtured my sweet little seedlings for months now... 
I thought I did everything I was supposed to do.
 
Little did I know there was peril in being such a "timely" gardener.
 
It became apparent to me that my seedlings weren't thriving anymore.
They were beginning to "outgrow" their pots, and they were looking wilty and sad.
They were saying to me, "please, please... take us outside!"
 
So I listened to them. 
 
I began the process of "hardying" them off, which I've never really done before
since this is my first year growing from seed.
 
Then I ultimately planted them last week,
and I was so thoroughly tickled with myself.
 
Only now, come to find out we're having a frost/freeze warning at the tail end of May,
here on Memorial Day weekend,
well past the last average frost date for our area.
 
Well, poo!
 
So much for being diligent and timely.
 
I remember my father cautioning against ever planting tomatoes
before the first of June
and now I see why. 
Freak things like this. 
And with gardening tender plants,
I see now that it's better to be a little late than a little early. 
 
But all is not lost.  Now I just have to do double duty.
 
Since I don't want all of those months of work in the basement to go to waste,
I have to carefully tend to all of the tender things. 
Namely:  tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplants.
 
 
I started off covering with frost cover fabric from the garden store.
 
It's so thin and flimsy and blows up with the slightest wind,
even though I was anchoring it down all over the place.
 
I could see how it might be okay for, say, strawberries who winter over but need good mulching...
 
But I was worried about my little tomato and pepper babies
who really don't like to go below 50 degrees.  Ever. 
(We're talking possible major stunts in production...)
 
A lightbulb went off and I thought about all of the empty canning jars we have...
mostly from eating up apple sauce and tomato sauce all winter long...
 

And it's a great solution!
It provides a nice little mini greenhouse for each plant.
You can see them fogging up with warmth and moisture.
 

  
Most of the pepper plants fit in little pint size jelly jars,
but the tomatoes needed quartz size jars.
 
Good thing they weren't any bigger, or my jar job would not have worked at all.
 
They look happy now, don't they? 
 
 Phew. 
Hopefully that will get them through!


5.25.2013

lilac... mulch

Life is all about timing.
 
Some strong winds have been blowing,
and our lilac is beginning to shed it's blossoms...
 
All of this has added up to make a beautiful lilac blossom "mulch"
all around one of our front garden beds:
 

It will only be this colorful ever so briefly,
so we enjoy it while we can.

5.14.2013

broody hen + duck eggs = ?



Our Buff Orpington hen has been broody for weeks now.
Buffs are notoriously broody breeds, and that's great if you have a rooster 
and want to hatch chicks regularly. 
 
But we don't have a rooster.
 
These eggs will only ever hatch if there's such a thing as immaculate eggception.
 
We were at a loss for what to do with our sweet little broody hen, and we kind of feel badly for her...
She wants to hatch something so badly, you can just feel it!
 
She's plucked out all of her chest feathers.
I guess one of the reasons they do this is because with the closer skin contact against the eggs,
it keeps the eggs warmer.
 
Needless to say, she's very devoted to her cause. 
 
 We worry about her being broody for so long...
My partner goes out to pry her off her nest every day to make sure she gets a little exercise, and some food and water because otherwise she just broods and broods the days away. 
 
 Whenever one of the other girls lays an egg somewhere in the coop,
she will take her beak and roll it all the way over to her special nest. 
She had almost a dozen eggs under her today! 

So, today we performed a great switcher-oo on her...
We took her off her nest, and put her outside. 


Then we collected all of the unfertile chicken eggs she had been sitting on and...  


 replaced them with fertile DUCK EGGS!!!


And then our little wanna-be-mamma went right back onto her nest!
 
I wonder if she could tell the difference?
Did she think, "Hmmm... my eggs look a little funny?  They smell a little different..."
 
It didn't seem to phase her one bit.
 
This probably sounds like a crazy broody adventure we're embarking on,
so we'll just have to wait and see what happens... (er, hatches). 
 
The lady who brought us the duck eggs
said that she's had other people do this before for her, and it works out great...
 
She said duck eggs are hard to hatch in an incubator,
and that broody hens seem to be one of the best ways to bring ducks into the world. 
 
Low and behold, the eggs she gave us are Buff Orpington duck eggs! 
 
It will take about 28 days, so stay tuned.
 
In exchange for our hen's brooding services,
we're allowed to keep half of the ducklings if we (or our hen) want to.
 
Maybe we should call them chi-ducklings!

5.08.2013

trillium

 
Trillium is such a spectacular woodland flower...
The one growing in our little woodland is the great white trillium grandiflora.
 
I first saw trillium when I was in college,
hiking through some woodlands in Erie, PA with my friend Tracy,
who is an amazing naturalist, now wildlife documentarian. 
Whenever I see trillium, I remember her.
 

Trillium is a 'spring ephemeral' and is also sometimes called wake-robin or birthroot.
 
Its seeds are primarily spread by ants...
 
White-tailed deer love to eat them,
so we're lucky to have any given the amount of deer that pass through our area.
 


If you look closely at this photo, you can see some pollen on the right petal.
I'm not sure which bees are most likely to pollinate trillium,
but I can imagine a plump little bumblebee,
saddled down with so much pollen
that on its way navigating out of the flower,
brushes against the side of the petal and leaves a little dusting behind...