i'm baa-aack

for those of you who didn't know i've been gone for a few weeks, poop to you. for the rest of you, you'll be glad to know that i am the proud owner of a new monitor for my computer and i'm back online.

only lisa had any questions about the fur in the toilet, so only she gets to watch the amazing video which explains the phenomenon and which i will post tomorrow when my IT guy gets back from vacation.

here is a mystery: my ducks' eggs were disappearing from the nest. you know, the fertilized eggs that they were setting on. also, my chickens had quit laying. there has not been a fresh egg on the place for two weeks.

here is the solution: my husband found a five-foot long black snake actually curled up in the ducks' nest. it was growing sleek and fat on MY BABY DUCKS and my eggs. crapezoid! i was just grateful that he ran for the shovel this time instead of my good serrated bread knife, which is what he attacked the beast with last time, about three or four months ago.



by the way, that man and i have been married 39 years, today.

the darker side of DUCKS

some may question that ducks have a darker side. hah! (mirthless laugh). our two female ducks are "on the nest," as they say in "it's a wonderful life," except that they really are. sitting on nests. about 23 hours a day. our one male duck is also sitting on a nest 23 hours a day. he was guarding the female ducks and nests first, but then i think they got annoyed with him and gave him a couple of eggs and said, "here. do something useful, and for heaven's sake, BE QUIET."

these female ducks have undergone a complete change in personality since they laid their eggs.



yes, they have gone from docile, sweet, funny pets, to being threatening and sinister. the other day i went in their pen (to give them food, mind you, and they know me!), and they both came at me. one aimed a peck at my shoe, i aimed a kick at its head. both of us missed. they pecked at chickens who were just standing there, and then one ran out of the pen and pecked one of my cats. now, you can't that that is the behavior of a psychologically normal duck. they resembled nothing so much as animated bulb horns (see fig. 1).

so that's what's happening on my little wannabe farm today. anybody want a duck?

update: chicken science project

just wanted to let everyone know that my broody hen who was setting on duck eggs spent three or four days with her head down and her butt up on top of those big fat eggs. then she got disgusted and abandoned her duck eggs and grumbled on down the line to one of the other nesting boxes, and is now being broody there. what can i say? yet an other science project down the pipes.

the parable of the ducks

the duck mistress of the farm had three ducks. every day she fed them and filled up three water vessels for them: two small vessels for drinking and one large one for bathing and swimming. every day as she was filling the vessels with clear, clean water, she would call the ducks to come and drink. instead, the ducks were dabbling in the mud and drinking from every stagnant puddle they could find. even though she called them again and again and called them any number of unattractive and perfectly true names, they wouldn't come.

finally one day they tripped over the vessels and said, "oh, look, clean water." one refused to drink. one took a tiny sip to wet his tongue. one plunged in, swam, dipped and drank his fill. and the duck mistress was happy.

my new science project

this is my new science project: i took four eggs out of the ducks' nest (they lay eggs in there, but neither of them has shown any inclination to actually set the eggs), and stuck them under a broody hen who has taken her stand in one of the nesting boxes and hasn't seen the light of day for a week. for those of you who are city people*, a "broody" hen is one who suddenly takes it into her head (where, believe me, there is p-l-e-n-t-y of room) that she HAS to have babies or die. so she lays eggs in the nesting box (or under a bush) and insists on sitting there day after day after day, waiting for them to hatch. my broody hen will wait a long time, since she's never even SEEN a rooster in her life. there's a chance that the duck eggs are fertilized, so i guess we'll see what happens.

*we have lived in the country for exactly two years.