Thursday, February 01, 2007

The Duck Bucket



I had a friend give me a pondliner. I have a friend with a bulldozer, what is wrong with me??? But before that....

I found one day that 11 ducklings were in the yard. Then 6 then 5 then 3, then 2, so on that day, I decided to do something, something that would make them not want to leave the yard and meet their maker off-premises. I decided to buy a bucket, so that they could swim. They weren't tall enough to see that the horse trough had water in it, so I buried a bucket. It's a rubber bucket, maybe 25 gallons or so, but big enough that they both could get in. Now that they're grown, they can't do but one at a time, but they love it. I keep it refreshed, and Bink pulls the leaves out, and we keep it high enough so that the resident toad can swing a leg over to get out.... we found that if its cold, and the toad goes in, he is there til we fish him out.

Ducks are GREAT. If we'd known this, we'd of had them before. These just wandered in and have stayed, corn is a great bribe. They do slappy feet all over the horse pen, eating and keeping the flies down, they snap so fast! They are a bit too large for our diminuitive hawks, and they sleep either up in the oaks (where they spent the hurricane, hunkered) or they fly to meet friends at a lake behind our property. They aren't loud, they don't get toooo friendly and poop on the porch, like the chikns, and they wag their tails when they're happy to see us. One has laid eggs in a hollow cypress in the yard, but thats another story.

The pond liner will have to wait awhile, right now this is just enough.