Fluffing up for winter

It was a duck-a-licious day yesterday (and no, I don't mean Duck a l'orange, or Peking Duck, or whatever the men out there are champing at the bit to suggest!)

Amy doesn't mind being picked up, probably because of all the nursing he received as a young duck, when he had one near-death experience and one beak-savaging. We named him "Amy Winehouse" because of his self-destructive tendencies. Alas, "Amy" has turned out to be a boy and needs a new name. "Amos" doesn't do it for us, so we're working on something else.

Sophie is nosing me because she gets jealous when I pay attention to any pet other than her, and will jog my arm with her nose until I scratch her butt. She has me well trained!

That's Hannibal getting a chin-scratch from me. I think he will be head duck one day.

I am still working on names for everybody. I have been able to tell them apart, but now all of a sudden everybody seems to be getting a lot more white in the colouring on their heads! If they lose their distinctive head-colouring, I am going to have a helluva time telling most of the apart!

That's Ronna on the lower right, one of the four original ducks. She and the other ducks have really fluffed up for winter with lots of extra feathering. Sophie is in the background grazing on duck poo. Ugh.

A boy, his dogs and his ducks.

Two cutie girls who need names.

Despite the cold temps yesterday, everybody seemed to have a bath, which resulted in some frozen feathers and punk hairdos. Apparently they ducks can deal with this (bathing in the cold) but you have to watch their feet in the cold. They can get stuck to ice and things like that!

I wonder what they were saying to each other? That's Amy, Ronna, and Danger Duck.

Cute little girl!

Moishe checks me out for treats. My friend Ronna suggested his name, because he has a little brown skullcap on his head. Sometimes I just call him "yarmulke duck"!

And this is my big boy Tristan. He is nine years old now and starting to get a little grey in the face. Wah!

Here he is, leading his Sunday flock!

And finally, a couple of chicken shots. I looked out the window last week and saw these two foraging in the garden...

Two of our "Muff" hens (I think they are some sort of English game hen, but they have beards or whiskers around their beaks, aka "muffs.) These two fly out the top of the run every morning, free-range all day, then come back at night. For some reason, their two siblings don't leave the run. Less adventurous, I guess! I've decided to let them have their fun. They are pretty wild and wily and they run and fly like nobody's business, so I think they have a better chance of avoiding predators than the other, fatter, slower hens.

The Muffs have started laying and they make the cutest tiny white eggs!

 I am going to work on judging the Duck Limerick Contest in January! There were so many marvellous entries, it's going to take a while. I need to narrow the entries down a bit, then assemble my panel of judges and arrange for the talented Ronna to bake a duck-themed cake. 

For those who missed it, this is the fun we had at the Hen Haiku judging this summer. Make sure you watch the video! I can't watch it without laughing like a hyena, which gets confusing because I laugh like a hyena all the way through the video.

And speaking of cakes, I've made it my personal mission to make Ronna's cake page on Facebook get 400 likes.  Can you please go "like" her page? And while you're there, check out her amazing cakes!

That's all for now. I have Christmas baking to do this week, a Hanukkah supper to attend (I'm a sucker for latkes), presents and cards to get in the mail (way too late!) and the usual array of farm chores. Have a good one!