My Goodness!!!

So, it's been WAY too long since I've updated the blog!! Sorry about that!

A LOT has changed since June!!

It turned out that Phineas and Ferb were both drakes, and Candace and Stacy turned out to be Candace and Steve! So, we traded Phineas and Ferb for 2 female Pekin from a local guy. He said they were both female, so we named them Zoe and Midna. It turns out that Midna is a drake as well!

 We then inherited our neighbors Khaki Campbell, Lily, because they were getting rid of all of their ducks. Lily was DDs best friends favorite duck, so we said we would take her. It wasn't until after I said that we would take her that we learned that she had broken her leg, and they had never done anything about it, so we have Lame Lily Duck! Around Labor Day I gave a friend 6 duck eggs to try and hatch. I had no idea if they were fertile or not, and it turned out that all 6 were fertile!!

 Then there was a mishap and the table that the incubator was on was rocked and only one egg remained. It hatched, and we named it Lucky. Since she was the only one, another friend gave us a Muscovy duckling (that we're debating is either a runner, or a Runner Scovie cross) that was about a week and a half older than her. So we had Gretchen and Lucky. Unfortunately, just the other day, Lucky choked on some food and we put her down. So, Gretchen is the only one who remains. :-(

All of our chickens are doing really well!! We ended up getting Buckeyes on 18June to replace the chickens that were lost in transit from Meyer. They all showed up happy, healthy, and chirping!

Robbie is our only rooster, thank goodness!! He welcomes the dawn every morning with a crow! He's fairly silent during the day tho. That makes me happy. We got our chicken coop done about a week before they were ready to go outside. Since at the time DH was traveling for work, it was just me building it! I did have a friend come over and help me with the initial build, but, after that I was on my own!

(yes, I know it's a little crooked... LOL)

The back is showing on this picture. I made it into 2 doors on the back, one large and one big, and the bigger door also has a large window in it. I'm going to be getting some better wiring to put over the openings, but, for winter I want to put some plexiglass, or something similar over them.

They seem to really enjoy it out there! They all free range in the back yard during the day.

(That's our neighbors RIR. They were have a West Side Story moment I think)

Recently a friend was moving and she had to get rid of all her chickens. So, we brought home 3 more hens, Boots, Lunch and Dinner. (I could only remember one of their names... LOL)

Boots

Lunch

Dinner

They're already laying, tho Lunch has just started a molt. Bad timing Lunch, bad timing!

Remember that tiny puppy we brought home?? Well, she's mostly grown up these days!! Here's some pictures of the little Annie from the last month or so. 

Sam and Annie

Annie and Dusty

Annie dressed up with no place to go!

Bat-eared Annie!

Our garden was mostly a bust this year. It was SO hot by the time the sun came out that none of us dared venture out there for more than a couple of minutes at most. Then our mower broke and we couldn't mow any grass, so the grass overtook EVERYTHING! (This was before we got the chickens and ducks out there to free range, they would have taken care of it.. LOL) At one point there was a deer sleeping in my garden! I scared it out when I went to feed the ducks and chickens. I didn't even see it! It just jumped up and ran off down the street! Oops! When we finally got everything fixed, it was just too late for the garden. We did find some interesting things in the back yard tho. Like this fellow:

Yes... that is a dead copperhead. We found it in the back yard. DS was moving the mower and it slithered out. He jumped out of the way and came and got me. Then he ran and got the neighbor and we cut it's head off. If it would have been in the back yard when it was mowed, I would have simply relocated it, or left it to leave, but with the grass being so high, I couldn't take a chance of someone getting hurt back there. 

We've already got a few things planned for next year, and we have some things in the garden now, covered by hoop houses! Lets see if we can get those to grow in there over the winter! Lets hope for a mild one! 

Hopefully it won't take me almost  months to update again! Until then, everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Free Ducks!

We've moved! Find us HERE!

So, the past 2 days have been KILLER!!

I somehow managed to rope my friend Billy into coming to help me build this enclosure for the ducks. We THOUGHT it would only take the day of Saturday, and we would would have it done! Well... neither of us accounted for the fact that we are not the worlds best carpenters.

We got SLIGHTLY farther than this on Saturday. We managed to get all 4 walls completely up, the door in, and a support beam in the center. We then realized that it was going to start pouring down rain. We got all of the equipment inside about the time that the Heavens opened and the rain came down in buckets!

So, after church today, the kids and I went to our FAVORITE fast food place. It's called Cook-Out. You can get a main item, TWO side items, and a drink for less than $5. If you want a shake (which are some of the best in the universe might I add) it's $1 more. Today, I got the PB shake. It brought me back to Cincy where you can get the worlds BEST PB shake any corner UDF store. Haven't had one since then. It was DELISH! I may have a new addiction!

After lunch, we got back to work. We got the fencing on the outside, and the chicken wire on the top. I got most of it tied together, but the one section on the very outer edge isn't done. It overlaps quite a bit, and we don't really have many predators here, so I'm not super worried. 

The only things left to do are: Get support beams for between the 12' sections, build a ramp of some sort for the kiddie pool, a cinder block or something so they can get OUT of the pool, and putting the chicken wire on the bottom of the inside. 

 I thought this picture was really funny because Lilly was watching them hard core! Dusty is infatuated by them and every time she goes outside she walks around it about 209 times before I go out there and get her. LOL

We also ordered our chickens today. I believe we're going to have to build another enclosure for the chickens. It just doesn't look like there's going to be enough room for both the ducks and chickens in that enclosure. We won't get the chickens until July. Unfortunately, in all the mock order that I put in with that hatchery, I never noticed that they had an option to pay when the chicks were ready to ship. I could have had them by now. :-( Oh well. It's all for the best I think. :-)

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Last week in the house!

So, I realize that I haven't posted about the ducks in a while! They've continued to get bigger, to get more feathers, to be stinky, smelly, and as dirty as possible! LOL

Next weekend our friend Billy is going to come over and assist us with building their enclosure. It will just be a simple thing for right now. A simple 8'x24' enclosure with field fencing on the outside, and chicken wire on the inside and top. We will also be ordering 6 chicken hens and 1 rooster as well. We're not going to build a coop right now, because the ducks don't need it anyways, but we will probably build one the beginning of June. I'll be sure to post pictures of the process of us building the enclosure!

Here are the ducks last week.

The mallards (Phineas and Ferb) are starting to get their wing feathers now. I can see the blue, and even a bit of the white on Ferbs wing! I'm still hoping that we have 3 hens and 1 drake, but I would be okay with all hens as well. I just REALLY don't want more than 1 drake. That would be bad.

Anyways! Monk mowed the back yard today, so I couldn't put them in their enclosure after church. They got some time in the bathtub instead. They really enjoy bathtub time, but I can't say that I'm going to miss cleaning up after it!

I also will not miss my bathroom smelling like a duck, or pine shavings on my floor, or... dreaming my bathroom is really an oven because of their red light! I will sorta miss them... but only long enough to get chicks... and then the process starts all over! GAH! I'm a glutton for punishment I do believe! ;-)

Ducks first outing.

So, today we went to TSC and got some step in posts so we could build a small enclosure in the back yard for the ducks to get some outside exercise time.

We made a pit stop on the way there at the farmers market. It was opening day. Too bad we forgot and didn't get there until noon!! While there we talked to one of the local apiaries about bees. He invited us to the bee group that meets once a month. I was also invited to take master gardening classes. (How cool is that!!) We picked up some local strawberries (ours aren't all the way ripe yet), some asparagus, and some local steaks! So, for dinner tonight we're going to have steak on the grill, asparagus, and baked potatoes. Then I'm going to make a strawberry shortcake for dessert! :-D (I'll try to remember to get a picture to share later.)

So, we get to TSC, Bug wanted more ducks. They didn't have any thank goodness or we would have walked out with who knows how many more!! She did try to talk me into bantams tho. I told her that I wanted full sized chickens, not midgets. Besides, we had our hands full with the ducks! She wants a couple more ducks, and a few chickens, so, I'm not sure what we're going to do right now. I know that we are only making the enclosure about 8x24, and I will probably have to do a 4x8 raised coop. I also plan on putting a couple dog houses in there for the ducks. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it yet, but I'm going to do it! LOL I will probably put the nest boxes on the outside of the enclosure so I don't have to walk in to get the eggs, but I will have to leave the inside with the ability to open so I can clean it, as well as vents on all 4 sides. I know I want Sweet PDZ in the coop under the roosts so I'm not having to scoop the poop out so much, and it will keep the smell down as well.

Anyways!! We get home and put up the enclosure, which is nothing more than some step in t-posts and some old plastic "fencing" that we had. We had originally bought it to wrap around our cucumber teepees last year, but we took it off because it didn't seem to work.

But... I guess I've really went on long enough... and I'll show the pictures of the ducks now. ;-)

When they first got out in the pen.

It was like they didn't want anything to do with the light! They stayed in the shade for a bit.

This is Phineas. You can see where his/her feathers are coming in. I really hope either Phineas or Ferb are males and everyone else is a female!

Finally in the sunlight!

Found the water!

They all wanted to try the water.

Ferbs turn in the water.

Nibbling grass.

OH YES!! I forgot. 

Monkey took a video with his cell phone!

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