Monday, March 26, 2012

Avian adventures

Took the camera down to the barn last evening...


It's spring. I don't which is worse, the fact that Hannibal is trying to make babies with his sister, or the fact that I photographed the event! Any children born of this union will be used to make an omelette.



I need to name the girls. I have trouble telling the white ones apart!



They are sweet little things.



Mama duck is doing better every day. I'll take the splint off next Monday. I'm hoping it has healed okay.



The Muff was NOT amused when I pulled aside the curtain and photographed her trying to lay an egg! "Some privacy would be nice!"




Charlotte and Henrietta aren't letting anybody up there!



We put up another next box, an old apple crate. It was a nice old antique apple crate until Alex the cat inexplicably peed in it last year. After airing out in the barn for a year, it'll do for a nest box. Thanks, Alex.



Charlotte and Henrietta hanging out. They turn three this July. Charlotte has a chronic wheeze that we've been unable to sort out, but apart from sounding like she smokes too many Marlboros, she does just fine. I treated her with antiobiotics last summer but we never really got it cleared up.



Buttercup and Tina Turner like to hang out near the ceiling.



A handful of fresh eggs!



And ten cords of next year's firewood waiting to be stacked in the granary!


Speaking of my "Muff" hens, one of them disappeared four days ago. Two of our Muffs habitually fly out the gap in the top of their run and go a-wandering. They are pretty wild and wiley, so we've just let them do that and hoped they'd be safe, because they hate being penned up. (They are some kind of English gamehen.) We looked all over for the missing Muff, but no luck. I figured the fox that caught Mama duck had probably eaten the hen.

This morning she showed up in the barn, waiting at the coop door to be let back in! It is very cold and windy today, so maybe she decided she'd just had enough of the nomadic life. I wonder where the heck she spent the past four days?!?! We're just glad she came back!

Happy Monday!



23 comments:

  1. Lovely pictures. Nice that she came back home again.

    Hugs
    Elna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are really happy. We'll see if she does this again! I hope not.

      Delete
  2. I daresay life with the fowls never gets boring. Glad your one Muff came back home, and intact, too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am amazed, and very glad! An no, never a dull moment on the farm!

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. The ducks certainly thought so! ;)

      Delete
  4. "This blog now carries a XXX rating"!
    Jane x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, yes, perhaps I should have inserted a warning before that first photo. Just tell the little ones the ducks are, uh, napping in invisible bunk beds!

      Delete
  5. How about Fridoline and Fiorella?

    ......and since some of your flock is getting older, has the time come to bring out my frying-pan?:-) Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Of course, I didn't mean it!!!!!!!
    I AM A NICE GUY!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes please, get out your frying pan so I can whack you on the head with! Bad Man!

      Delete
  6. Anonymous11:18 am

    I'm sure he only intends to make an omelette - like you suggested! He would need a nice toasty oven for anything else!

    g

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great photos! Your birds are at the Adam and Eve's duck stage. The call of nature to reproduce. I find it very reassuring that they knew how, and didn't get a sermon. I never had duck omelets Your ducks are so nicely fed that it should taste very good. Let us know how you prepare it.

    When we lived in Northern Ontario, it was the man's job to cut the trees, and mine to stack the wood. Good exercise! Get going, Knatolee.:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gordon will love you, Claude! I stacked most of the wood last year. :)

      Delete
  8. Glad you Muff is back, and did not become some repast for Mr. Fox!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She has gone off again today! Let's hope she's back by bedtime.

      Delete
  9. Well, at least the drake is on top of the duck and not the other way round...I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, that is correct. Although the other day I found a hen on top of hen, going at it like gangbusters...

      Delete
  10. Oh dear!!!... those naughty birds first go at it with whoever they find, and then they smoke Marlboros after!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I shudder to think what goes on down there when I'm not around!

      Delete
  11. Oh my goodness, you amaze me! The pile of firewood makes my back hurt just to look at it.

    One of my grandsons is very fair. He and his friends tried to think of foods that were like their coloring. One kid was caramel, for instance. Grandson was cauliflower. :)
    I think one of your unnamed girls would qualify for that name.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am so not in the mood to stack wood!

      Cauliflower, I like that!

      Delete
  12. Thank you Anonymous. Of course I was thinking Omelet.:-)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!