Happy Easter

 

More Ducklings

 

Khaki Campbells and Cayugas!  This group is a week old.

Last year's plans to invigorate the laying flock were thwarted by covid restrictions.  Hopefully, there will be more ducks than drakes in this batch.

Ducks typically continue to  lay eggs when they are four, five, six years old.  Trouble is, they slow down and as we have found with the older gals here at Bad Dog Ranch, their egg shells become thinner with age.

I can be a bit of an oaf, but I like to think after having done it a few times I can manage to handle eggs without breaking them.  In the past couple months, I've broken three or four eggs just picking them up and putting them down.  The shells are not as hard.  They just aren't.

For the squeamish in the audience, we won't get into what happens to ducks who don't lay well anymore, just as we don't mention what happens to excess drakes.

I have a mantra:  they are NOT pets... they are NOT pets... 

 In addition to the mantra, it is also helpful for my tender heart to remember that the birds in my care are given the very best life I can provide.

Get a Load of This!

Yesterday I ate two peices of string. This morning they came out tied together. I shit you knot.

Trail Camage 15

 Ever have the feeling you were being watched?

The amount of deer footprints in the front yard is astounding.  

Now we know why.

There's five of them!

It seems they are feeding on the yew located under the front bedroom window.

Other than that, it is unclear what is attractive to them so close to the house.

They seem to be looking up.  Are they looking into the window?  Quick!  Draw the blinds!

Maybe they are looking above the window.  At what?  A bat?  A plane?  A fiddler on the roof?

We may never know...

Not the hoped for Harmony

 Hazel came to live with us at the tender age of 7 weeks.  

That was some 9 months ago.

How is she getting along with the pack, you ask?

Well, let us say that integration is not complete.

There may never be the harmony that we'd like.

Still, it's not hopeless.  I've learned to keep a cloth on my desk so Hazel doesn't slobber on my papers.  

Maybe the other dogs will develop their own coping strategies.   Why not?  

  St Lois was an optimist too. 

Hazel's First Big Snow

 It's up to her knees and then some!

Hazel must employ her superior scenting skill to find the ball under all that snow.

 

Soon the drool will freeze and hang stiffly.  There will be no picture of that.  It's just too disturbing.

Trail Camage 14

 Some of you may recall the fisher sightings reported here a few years ago.  You can review the fisher specifics here if you so desire.

Now, what have we here?  A dreaded fisher or just a black squirrel?  We need scale.  How big is that log?   Not sure.  I meant to go back and check, then I forgot, then I remembered but it snowed, then I forgot where the log was...   

The short days of winter:  the bane of early risers.

  

This is a big reason why the ducks are locked in at night.

Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to every one that he is a fool.  

- Ecclesiastes 10:3

Hazel is a Drama Queen

Hazel got spayed yesterday.  Yes, yes, it's major surgery and all.   She could be heard whining from the lobby of the veterinarian.  She sat stiff and tragic in the car on the drive home. 

They shaved me and put me in a cage.  I threw up on my ears.  

It feels strange when I squat to pee.  I'm glad Lynn washed that smell off my ears.  Why am I so tired?  I didn't get to walk today or play or anything.  Phooey.

Well anyway.  Thanks for taking that cone off my head before the photoshoot.