Duck Drama - 20/52

Who would have thought 5 Muscovy ducks could cause so much drama!  A few days ago, Lil' Girl, my favorite female of the bunch, up and flew away.  I got up that morning, opened up the back blinds of the window that overlooks the pond, and all of the ducks were flying around.  Four of them came right back.  Lil' Girl had something else on her agenda.  I keep hoping she'll reappear, but so far no luck.

Then, this morning, Jason looked out the same window and saw the same thing - all ducks in flight.  This time, however, two of them came back and temporarily roosted on the roof of the house.  This is Mama duck and one of the babies (all grown up now).  Daddy Duck and the other male baby still haven't come back.

I walked down to the pond to refresh their food and to make sure the heater was keeping an area unfrozen so they can drink, and I noticed footprints in the snow that sits on top of the frozen pond.  The tracks indicate a smallish animal with padded feet was on the ice.  I'm thinking it was likely a fox or a small coyote.  And I'm also thinking that is what spooked all the ducks into flying off.  What I don't know is if Mr. Predator managed to nab him a duck dinner before all was said and done.  I'm hoping not, but there's really no way to know.  The paw prints going towards the duck's watering hole is not a good sign though. I guess at this point we just watch and see what happens. Hopefully we manage to get the two that came back to stick around. There really isn't much we can do aside from provide them with food, water and shelter, which they already have full access to.  If the two that came back are smart they will sleep on the roof until the pond thaws and they can use their floating duck dock again (now embedded in a slab of ice).

This is Lil' Girl...still hoping she reappears.

Edit:  Daddy Duck came home at dusk tonight!  :)

Feed Me. Now. - 18/52

Giant Dawg gets a little pushy at dinner time.  And breakfast time for that matter...

The ducks got new digs yesterday.  We built them a larger 6' x 6' dock with a dog igloo in the middle for winter shelter.  They seem to like it and started exploring it right away.  Daddy Duck is the only one that decided he liked the old, half sinking dock better.  Go figure.

Here they are checking out their new duck pad.  You can see Daddy Duck on the old dock looking a bit apprehensive:

Jason goes in for surgery on his ankle on Thursday.  He ripped his peroneal tendon right in half and has to have it reconstructed with bovine tendon (Moo Moo Buckaroo!).  He's been hobbling around on crutches for 6 weeks now and will be for another couple of months until he can start physical therapy.  Luckily I'm home now to help him out, particularly because it's his right foot and he can't drive anywhere.

And speaking of working from home - it rocks!  I could use a couple more clients to make me feel a little more comfortable, but so far it's going well.  It's nice actually having time to put into my own work and actually having weekends free to do whatever I want (for now anyway).  We usually get a busy spree at the beginning of the year when new budgets are in place, so hopefully after the holidays we'll pick up those extra clients and be well on our way!

Silly Ducks - 16/52

Go Go Duckzilla!

Flipping me the feather?

Wait for meeeee!

The ducks crack me up.  They dive, they flap across the water at insane speeds and the little brown girl, my favorite of the bunch, is a food fiend!  This last photo is of her running up the hill because she knew I had food up there for her.  They are very entertaining!

It Was a Hoppin' Weekend! - 6/52

First up - this week's animal photo - one of the many frogs that live in the pond:

We had an extremely busy holiday weekend.  Jami & Larry were down from Indy from Friday to Sunday.  We had a huge Labor Day bash to break in the new homestead on Saturday, which yielded a turnout of about 40 people.  Lots of food was consumed, jello shots were popular and the fishing was good.  It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again!  Unfortunately I was too busy to even think about taking photos and didn't get a single one.

With the holiday weekend I took off my half day Friday to get the house cleaned up.  I have today off for the holiday and I have tomorrow off for working the fair last week - not a bad deal!  So today we're running some errands, cleaning up around the house, and hopefully relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather this week has brought!

And for duck updates - we lost three of the original four to what we thought was a snapper in the pond.  So we got three more to put the number back up at four and got bigger ones.  This time the larger one went missing.  After thinking about it we have come to the conclusion that the coyotes are getting them.  So we put up an electric fence around the tree they roost under and haven't had any come up missing since.  They are getting big and right now I'm calling them my Tweens.  ;)  As you can see, their color is starting to come in.

Behbeh Duckies! - 2/52

Friday we brought home four of the cutest baby ducklings!  We have set up a temporary enclosed area in the pond where they can be on land, in the dog igloo that is their shelter, or in the water, until they learn where their new feeding spot and shelter is.  We should be able to let them out of the pen in a few more days.  They are so cute and fuzzy and soft!  They have tiny little wings that they flap around as much as they can.  They are Muscovy ducks, but we don't yet know what the female to male ratio is.

More photos: