#muscovy duck
gonna be a short one because honestly not a lot has happened. i mean a lot has happened but not that much, ya feel? nothing interesting, anyway.
biggest even on the farm is the advent of the Duckening, which is to say not one, not two, but three hen ducks hatched broods of, at minimum, eight ducklings. so now i have a whoooole lot of fluffy little babies running around in my yard and it’s honestly incredibly distracting.
amber (above) and sapphire the muscovies are co-parenting again, but this time much more successfully as they brooded their own nests and just combined their ducklings once they hatched. it is very adorable to watch them sitting together with their five billion babies crowded around them. nevan, the cayuga, also hatched nine ducklings and is doing a much better job of mothering this time. she is a fierce protector, which on one hand is nice to see but on the other she’s definitely not going to be producing any tame ducklings, i guess.
another new addition is the huge, white marshmallow of a rex doe named cloud nine that i got in exchange for finishing up some tanning work for AQF:
she is bred to AQF’s very fancy black buck named tokoyami, and i am very excited to see those kits but also a little stressed as that’s a lot of babies coming up soon. again. this time, though, hopefully i can make it work so i don’t have to make another donation to the reptile zoo (as much as i like being able to help support them.)
the baby train continues with cecil the rex kindling TWELVE (two DOAs, for a live total of ten,) kits on tuesday, then lincoln the holland lop following behind her with five (one fell on its head, one failure to thrive, for a live total of three,) a couple days later. they are all GORGEOUS, and i cannot wait to see how they are built. there’s only three nonbroken blacks, but the good news is i actually own holden so it wouldn’t be a pain to retry the litter again if none of them are workable for me. if only there were some shows i felt safe enough going to…i’m about to have some really nice kits. sigh.
in the garden things go well - the corn has begun to tassle and make ears, and i’ve been spending a few minutes every few days playing matchmaker and bapping the silks with a tassle or two to try and get some actual usable ears. the green beans are starting to make a ton of beans (not quite enough to feed all three of us yet, but getting there!) and the potatoes have bloomed and are beginning to fall over. the zucchini is about to blow me out of house and home (i can’t wait to make some zuke and potato gratin, counting the days.) the tomatoes are juuuust starting to ripen up which is muuuch later than i’m used to coming from texas where tomato season starts basically in april, but i’ll be glad to get some regardless! i have the first one picked yesterday primed and ready to chop it up on my tacos for dinner. can’t wait.
this weekend i spent time getting more cages up, but now i’m stuck needing to cut more pipe, which is incredibly boring and not my favourite part of the process. but it looks like i only need a couple more before i can take a break and order enough cages to fill the gaps that i’ll have once the other cages are up. and then maybe i can get back to organizing the barn. it’s only taken all year.
well i hear the instant pot going off, and i wanted to make some banana bread for dessert, so i need to get off of the computer and get some more work done. see you all next week!
