A little more watermelon fun

Yep, the ducks got more watermelon treats this week!

Girl duck in need of name had a great time! She's all white.

Oedipus is all white too! They both enjoy a nice fruit snack.

Meanwhile, back in babyville...

I have to figure out when the other eggs are going to hatch, because we'll have to shift these guys out of here when that happens. Hopefully they'll be big enough to move in with the general population then.

They all have very adorable tails right now....

I named the drake "Jim" after my Dad, who would have appreciated it.

Jim has the best duckling tail right now!

He's feisty but he sat on my lap for quite a while today. He'll be less cute this time next year when's he making the moves on his sisters and mothers. Ducks have no scruples.

Cuteness!

And Mama Ronna isn't so bad herself!

The chicks demand air time!

And when a face like this demands air time, one does not refuse!

But the chicks are really hard to photograph. They zip around like gerbils on speed, and Mama Emma (named by Katnip Lounger Trish) has a sh*t fit every time I go anywhere near her babies. I'm surprised she hasn't excised one of my eyeballs yet. God knows she wants to!

The chicks are feathering out and getting bigger.

Mama Emma is VERY protective!

I think these are going to be some whacky-chickens. I highly suspect that this gang had three fathers.

This one is a little Errol Flynn, I'm sure! Did I mention that three little black chicks went across the road to join my friend Judy's new layer chicks? They will have a good life over there, and that leaves us with eight chicks which is PLENTY.

Cute, aren't they? Some are already developing "muffs" like their Mama. Some seem to have feathered legs like Errol. I wonder if any will have whacky hairdos like Lord Gaga and Beaker? I know zilch about chicken genetics!

They like watermelon but are rapidly outgrowing this little enclosure!

So, kids...

WHO'S...

YOUR...

DADDY!?!?!

Weed-like growth of the cute feathery ones...

I took my camera to the barn today to get some shots of the little chicks, but stopped in to see my ducklings first. But my camera battery died after four shots! I will work on chick photos tomorrow.

The ducklings are getting HUGE...

This one is definitely a drake. I'm hoping he's the only boy! He's very cute with markings.

Check out those teeny-tiny feathers, especially on the tail!

Another cuties. Mama-Ronna has been moulting so there are lots of feathers around!

And little Twitchy!

More photos soon...

Painted turtle out for a stroll

When the fellow who cuts our lawn arrived today, he let us know there was a turtle in our laneway. Then another friend showed up and told us the same thing. So I went down to see what was up...

...and found a Painted turtle. We are supposed to have Midland Painted turtles around here, but I thought the under-side looked more like that of an Eastern Painted turtle:

I submitted the sighting to the Toronto Zoo Adopt-a-pond Turtle Tally, along with a photo, so with any luck they'll figure it out. (Thanks, Sarah, for pointing out that program to me!)

My herpetologist friend Roger Repp thinks this would be a girl, since they are the ones roaming about at this time of year (mating season.) But there's something special about this one. Can you tell what it is?

She only has one eye! I don't know what happened, but at some point she sustained some injury to her left eye, which has healed over. She seems to be doing just fine without it.

Because she was in danger of being mowed by the lawn guy, run over in our laneway, or squashed by a tractor, I moved her down near the creek that runs through out property.

Gordon snapped some pics while I was doing that.

Incognito turtle!

Must be tough with only one eye. I hope things go okay for her in life.

It wasn't me!

"It wasn't me!"

Emily lies like a cheap rug.

Houston, we have a problem...

One nest...

...two duck mamas! Eugenia (left, she of the broken leg courtesy of Mr. Fox) and her daughter Maria Andretti (so named cuz she had racing stripes on her head when she was little and I thought she was a boy and named her Mario but then she turned out to be a girl so it's Maria) have both decided that the latest nest of eggs is theirs!

I had no idea ducks would sit together on a nest and I have no idea what to do about it, so for now I'm just letting them be. I have marked eight eggs again and any more that get laid are being removed on a daily basis! Neither of these ducks is as benign and placid as Ronna-duck, but I did manage to get them both off the nest for a minute last night without losing an eye.

Meanwhile, today it's back to Art Fayre. Here I am, teasing (the original, not the duck) Ronna with a chocolate-covered cheesecake bite...

If you're anywhere near Dunvegan, Ontario (i.e. Ottawa, Montreal or Cornwall), why not come join us at Art Fayre today, from 12pm to 4 pm at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum? It would be nice to make many, many sales today!

Have a happy Sunday.

The ducklings achieve television fame

So the other day, I sent in one of my duckling/watermelon photos to Ian Black, the climatologist for CBC Ottawa. I  really like his weather forecasting. Anyway, he always runs a couple of photos with his evening TV segment. Apparently he quite liked my watermelon ducks, because he used the photo on Thursday. I took a few screen shots from the video...

"Partly ducky on Thursday with a chance of watermelons!"

I love how Mama Ronna seems to be peeking around his head here.

It was all very exciting!

You can watch the video here. The fun starts around the 22:40 mark. 

Some people have had trouble getting the video to run, but it worked fine for me!

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Deer and heat and bees and wheat!

First...

...a lovely little honeybee on clover. Make lots of honey, girl!

And...

...the field of wheat in our front fields is looking quite beautiful.

And what's this?

Look down and to the right of the power pole in the centre. See the brownish spot?

It's a buck, having a rest next to our laneway in the stinking hot weather this week. My UPS guy told me it was a buck. He hunts moose, but he knows his deer! This buck has been hanging around our wheat field for two weeks now. Here he's lying in some wheat from the field next door. That land doesn't belong to us. The farmer had it planted in wheat last year. This year he used Round-up to nuke the wheat the grew up from last year's seed and planted more godforsaken soybeans. But he is always careful not to get the grass that runs along our laneway, and he left a buffer strip of wheat too, which was very nice of him. The deer loves it in there.

Peek-a-boo!

I see you!

Definitely a White-tailed deer. I'm guessing our UPS guy knew he was a buck because of his large size, since he has no antlers right now.

Thanks for all the great comments you have been leaving me! I need to catch up on responding to them, and also on my blog reading. I've been busy getting ready for our Art Fayre show at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum in Dunvegan this weekend. It's Saturday and Sunday from 12pm - 4 pm. Lots of beautiful art, and we are celebrating the museum's 50th anniversary this year. If you're in the area, please drop in! It's about an hour east of Montreal and an hour west of Ottawa, and about the same north of the Cornwall border crossing. More details on our blog, plus lots of artist profiles (including mine!) Have a great weekend!

Clouds that are pretty and a very proud kitty!

After a very hot day yesterday, we got a torrential, very localized rainstorm. My friend Ronna, about 25 minutes north of me, stayed high and dry, but the skies opened up here. I knew something was something was coming when I saw these cloud formations...

So dramatic over the wheat fields!

We set heat records today and yesterday. Things are supposed to cool down overnight, with perhaps a thunderstorm.

And this morning, Emily was running around the house making that "I just caught something tasty!" cat noise. Here she is, proudly displaying her kill:

Yes, the brush from a paint roller. What a vicious killer! :)