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Posts Tagged ‘ducks’

Friday Photo

Posted in Friday Photo, tagged , , on January 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Our ducks enjoying themselves on our neighbours pond!

Ducks on Pond

Ducks on Pond

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Friday Photo… and an update

Posted in Friday Photo, tagged , , on January 15, 2016| 1 Comment »

If you read last night’s post you’ll know that the ducks refused to vacate the pond.  I was sure we were going to find devastation this morning, as on my last late night patrol I spotted a fox patroling the edge of the pond.

Thankfully, they were all fine and well (if extremely tired) when I found them this morning.

Ducks survived the coldest night

Ducks survived the coldest night

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Well that was a fun hour….

Posted in Home, tagged , on January 14, 2016| 6 Comments »

NOT!!

Thursday, 14th January – 5.15 pm and the ducks are not in bed.  I can see them swimming about on the pond in our neighbours field.

Usually they are in bed at this stage.

Back into the house and gave them another 10 minutes.  5.30 pm still not in.

5.40 pm don the wellies again, and discover half of the ducks are still swimming about in the pond, the other half are huddled in a tight  group at the edge.

Back to the kitchen to call in help.

Time to go and try to herd them back to their respective sheds.  Climb over fences to, plod through our stream – this is the moment I discover one of my wellies is leaking![when else] – over another fence and into a sodden field.

We get 5 of the muscovy babies (teenagers now) back on the right side of the fence.  So I’m left guarding them to make sure they don’t head back to pond while Alfie tries to get the remainder out of the pond.  By the way, I’m standing in the stream at this stage… yes, still in the leaking wellington. And in total darkness as Alfie has the torch.

And then it starts to snow!

Can it get any worse?

Alfie makes valiant attempts to get the swimming ducks out of the pond but to no avail.  He’s on one side, they on the other.  He moves around, they move to the other side several times.  In fact … stalemate.

Meanwhile I try to ‘herd’ the 5 charges I have back towards their shed.  Pitch dark, uneven ground…. yes, I end up falling into stream.

At least I am now uniformly wet on my lower half.

My 5 charges who normally duck under the fence (excuse the pun!) at the edge of our lawn, have no intention of doing this now.  So one by one I had to lift them and practically throw them over the fence.

Finally we are making progress towards the shed as the front house light is on.  Then we hit another stumbling block …. the yard is dark.  Why does the sensor light never come on when you want it?  Eventually the light comes on, and we manage to walk them extremely slowly up the yard to their shed.

We’ve had to abandon efforts 6.45 pm of trying to get the others off the pond.

So folks it is now time for prayers that they survive the night.

Needless to say there are no illuminating photos of this.

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Winter Stream

Posted in Home, tagged , , on November 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

We’ve had a ton of rain in the past week.  It has hardly stopped raining at all… and there is more rain and storms on the way this evening.

Getting out to feed the pigs is a nightmare.  They really don’t like the rain.  They come out to eat and then go straight back to bed – sensible pigs.

The ground is sodden.

We shouldn’t really complain when you think of people in other parts of the world not having enough water.  In one sense we are lucky, despite the drudgery of the mud.

We have underground springs everywhere.

Winter Stream

Winter Stream

The outcome of all this rain and increased underground spring activity?  Since Friday we are back to having our Winter Stream.

It is not there in the summer.  It is perfectly dry in the summer, but once the rains start to fall it appears and will now probably stay until late Spring/early Summer. We spent the morning raking all the debris out of it so that it could ‘flow’…. it is almost knee deep in just 2 or 3 days.

The ducks love it, you can just make out a couple of them off in the pond in the neighbouring field!

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Friday Photo

Posted in Friday Photo, tagged , , on August 14, 2015| 4 Comments »

Thought this chap might stop ducks going out onto roadway.  It worked for 24 hours.  Then they went and picked at his boots and discovered he doesn’t move!!!!!

Scarecrow

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Friday Photo

Posted in Home, tagged , , , on June 20, 2014| 12 Comments »

This week, we have MAJOR cuteness overload….. we have baby ducks 🙂

Mollie & Babies

Mollie and her 11 babies

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Friday Photo

Posted in Friday Photo, Photographs, tagged , , , on May 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I was late with dinner yesterday, so a delegation arrived to let me know I was late 🙂

Duck Delegation

Duck Delegation

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Fowl Play

Posted in Home, tagged , , , on March 1, 2011| 2 Comments »

Right from the start of moving to North Tipperary I wanted to have hens!  To me they were the iconic small holding symbol!

In 2004 my friend, Sheena, gave me a voucher for The Organic Centre in Leitrim which I used to attend a ‘Keeping Hens’ course.  I loved it!

However, it took another couple of years before I finally got to have my hens…. and ducks…. and turkeys!Hens, ducks and turkeys feeding

Hens – I still enjoy.  We have laying hens and have had some for the oven (we need to stock up again on these).   Home-grown roast chicken is absolutely gorgeous, and there is absolutely nothing on earth that beats fresh eggs!   I am convinced that one of our brood of hens chats to me!  I swear everytime I go to the garden she comes along and starts her chatter!  We suspect that she is the one that I rescued from the pups ‘playing’ with her… and that she enjoyed the little drop of brandy she got then, so she wants more!

Ducks – they are OK…. noisy, lead their own lives and love nothing better than a supply of water to splash about in.  They give us eggs too and we’ve even managed to eat one or two and they were delicious.

Turkeys – well they have to be the most stupid of all birds!  I am truly not enamored with them!  They eat, make noise, and that’s about it!  OK so there meats quite nice too, but to me nothing compared to duck or chicken!

And the most recent addition to our feathered menagerie has been a rooster.

Our new rooster

For those who didn’t hear the story previously…. during the recent election I was on my feeding round (which can be incredibly noisy!) when the canvassers arrived.  While trying to have some sort of ‘election’ type conversation was impossible, one canvasser asked if I’d like a rooster!  Of course, I said yes, and the very next day she arrived with a present for me.

Some have suggested that this constitutes bribery and corruption…. others feel it is fowl play….. one way or the other, he makes a great addition to life here – I love his noise not just at dawn – he goes on all day!

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