A bevy of ducks weather the storm

There is some difference of opinion as to what a group of ducks is called—a raft, paddling, flush, team, or flock—but the one I like best is a bevy. A few days into their freedom, the bevy still won't travel further than a foot or 2 outside the fence. It is pretty amusing how they all stay so close together, and they do go back inside the crate altogether at night. I have to wait until it is almost dark before I lock them up in there, or else they run out in a frenzy trying to escape the big monster—me.

We had a storm blow through just before I took these photos. They were warning of tornadoes and hail, but all we got were some black clouds and a lot of rain. I went out with the camera because we usually also get a rainbow after these fast-moving storms, but I couldn't find one tonight.

The Husband bought a new rototiller today. Farmer that he is now, he's got to get that garden going soon...

Setting free the big ducks

We've had the ducks for about a month now, and we still have all 8. At first we kept them in the dog crate, then moved them to larger quarters in last year's fenced garden, and then yesterday we started leaving the fence open for them to wander freely. Of course they haven't really taken advantage of their freedom yet—they spend most of the day in the fence.

The last photo is from May 2. You can see they still had their downy baby feathers. The other 2 photos are from today. I think these are called their juvenile feathers, meaning that they aren't the right color yet. That would explain why they don't have the "beetle-green" heads and black bodies that are typical for Cayuga ducks. The only other explanation I can think of is that they are not actually Cayugas, the price you pay for buying on Craig's List.

Now that they seem to have their flight feathers, I am hoping that they will learn to fly, as that will be their best defense against predators. Eventually we will introduce them to the creek, but we are not quite sure how to do that. For now we still lock them up in the dog crate at night.

I have been reading the duck books that were a gift from Little Sister (Thanks, Little Sis!) I hope to learn as much as I can before we send the little cuties out into the real world that is Lester's Flat.

The miracle of life

Spring is all about birth, and we have evidence of spring here at Lester's Flat.

First, the eagle in the last post is probably one of the parents in the eagle's nest across the street on the horse farm property. I have yet to wander through the field, which has at least 3 new foals in it, to go take a photo.

The chickens are reveling in the warmer weather and have been all over the property exploring. Exploring and laying eggs. We were just back to getting 8 or 9 eggs a day, when we suddenly dipped down to 2 or 3. A lengthy search finally revealed the newest hiding places: in the pig shed (photo) and in the hay bales. None of the girls are sitting on their eggs yet, but I expect  one or 2 of them will try again, like last year.

Finally, yesterday, the WoodMan uncovered a mouse nest on the back porch. He and Sophie promptly scared the mouse half to death before we rescued her and sent her on her way over the fence. In cleaning out the nest, we found a living newborn mouse, obviously born too soon.

On a happier note, thus rating the larger photo, we went to Madison County today to pick up what we intended to be 4 Cayuga ducklings. The Husband has been wanting to get some ducks, and I have been wanting them to be Cayugas, a very pretty black and blue-green breed that is native to NY state (I think...have to do some more research on them...)

After driving around lost and finding Stockbridge Hill Road instead of Stockbridge Falls Road, and then being offered all 8 for a discounted rate of only $20, well, I think you know the result.

More to follow.

What are the chances?

Monday morning as I was getting ready for work, I got a phone call from Cousin Chris saying how pleased he was with Frank the Pig. While I was talking to him on the phone, something huge flew right past my dining room windows. I looked off to the side to see that it was a bald eagle, who conveniently landed in a tree just outside. We've seen him (or her) several times before, but never this close to the house. He stayed on that branch long enough for me to run around the house to find the best window from which to take a photo. I took about 20 shots from inside, but it turned out the best shot was from outside when I was leaving for work. In the pouring rain I got the best photo, and thoroughly soaked.

So what are the chances that Don on the Hill's dog would be running around just behind the eagle in the photo? Bandit is a white dog, which made him pretty easy to spot, although I had no idea until I downloaded the photos that he was in there. Of course with me trying to get closer for a better shot, the eagle flew off...but I also just barely caught him in the photo as he was flying off.

Altogether a pretty lucky photo shoot for a not-so-great little camera!

I took a short trip back to visit with Little Sister in NJ for Easter. Sophie came along for the ride, and Woody stayed home with The Husband to keep him company. Much fun was had by all.

First Day of Spring! Ha!

In a perfect world, the first day of spring would look just like the masthead at the top (with the big Lester). Only that photo was taken on May 20, 2011, and maybe the color was enhanced just a bit in Photoshop... In 2012, we had a frost in early spring that killed almost all of the apple blossoms, so we had no pretty spring photos AND no apples last year.

The first day of spring 2013 looks just like this. A foot of snow yesterday, and snow showers for the next several days, including this afternoon while the sun was shining. We had just gotten to the point this weekend where we could see almost all of the grass, and some of the trees have the earliest leaf buds. Now it's white all over again.

If you can see the snow that's disturbed in the bottom right of the big photo—I think that was from last night where a few of the deer dug themselves a bed in the snow, right over the leach field for the septic, nice and warm! Good thing Woody has a sheet over his crate. That is right outside the window where he sleeps.

I took these photos while I had Woody out on the leash in the back. I can't even let him out to go to the bathroom, because he jumps the fence and takes off, never to be seen again. So I take him out on the leash, and he barks like a fool and aims himself at the chosen weak spot—straight ahead of him in the photo. He had also just seen some deer wandering back there, so he was even more interested in the great escape.

Sophie just hangs out on the porch with me. We both wonder if he will ever calm down.

Wood Man—Wood Stove—Chickens—Snow

I've been neglecting the blog again...sorry folks! I've had the flu (or some nasty bug) for almost 3 weeks now. That's my main excuse, that and I just have not been motivated to take many photos of our snowy landscape.

This winter hasn't really been as bad as they predicted. We have had a fairly constant snow cover, but in inches, not feet. It warms up and melts, we can see the grass, and then it snows again within a day. What we are missing, most of all, is sunshine! This grey snowy landscape just doesn't inspire me to go out with my camera.

The Wood Man and me, we're staying close to the woodstove. He gets so close to it that I am surprised he doesn't start burning up. I can't even pick up the poker for how hot it is, and he lays right on top of it!

Woody is making very slow progress with his training. I think we need spring to inspire us both to work harder on that...

But those chickens think it IS spring. They are out and about every day, strolling around in the snow, hanging out in Charlie's barn, and laying about 8 eggs a day compared to their winter totals of about 10 eggs a month. The first sign of spring is when my araucana (the blonde to the right of Roo in the closeup) lays her first blue egg since November!

Lucille goes for a ride

Mama doe, Lucille, got to take a ride yesterday in the back of the hay transport vehicle, our Honda CRV. She has been complaining and rubbing up against anything she can find, to the point where she rubbed off a big swatch of hair on both sides of her neck. Best we could tell after minimal research was that it was either lice or mange (caused by mites) neither of which we were capable of treating.

So while The Husband was in work yesterday, I packed her up into the CRV with a little help from my neighbor, Don on the Hill. She was surprisingly well behaved sporting her pretty collar and leash (both from Sophie). We had to wait in the car for about 45 minutes, but then she walked right into the vet's office like she owned the place.

Other than doing a big P&P in the office, twice!, she was a very cooperative patient. Although she tested negative for both lice and mange, the default diagnosis is mange, which is often missed in the skin scrape and blood test. She has to return in another 2 weeks for a follow-up shot, but will otherwise be fine.

As for the wayward hound dog: I took him up to Don's house to wander because it is much farther from the road than our house, and because he has always been much better at staying with us when we walk up there. Maybe because Don and his dog Bandit weren't home, or maybe because he is just in his bad boy phase, he took off again. I gave up waiting for him and took Sophie home as soon as Don came back. Woody turned up about an hour later looking for us...bad boy...but yes we did praise him profusely when Don brought him back here.

The Obedient Wood Man, part 2

Really the earlier post should have described him as the disobedient one as well, but we are staying focused on the positive because we are working on positive dog training.

Wood Man has been out on the leash only since the last post, because he has discovered that he can easily jump the fence in the back where we let the dogs out to go to the bathroom. He is not happy with his leash-only walks, even though we graduated to the 20-ft Flexi leash. He nearly pulled me off the porch onto the concrete the first time I took him out with the longer leash, but that's definitely my fault for not explaining how this works.

Yesterday, since I did not have to work, I thought I would try to let him go free and test my recall abilities. I am a failure! He went out at 9:30 am, and I didn't get him back until 1:30 pm—and only then because a neighbor helped me. Susan from the horse farm called him to her, and he immediately turned around and ran back to the house...go figure!

At least my "No Road" training seems to have paid off. For all the hours he was running yesterday, he never went out in the road, even though another neighbor was directly across the street playing Frisbee with his dogs.

These photos are post-party. He was totally exhausted for the rest of the day, barely getting up off the chair until bedtime.

A tired dog IS a good dog! If only I could get him tired in some less dangerous way...

Lazy by the woodstove...all snowed in!

Hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or other holiday of your choice! I spent so much time writing out Christmas cards, that I gave up blogging for the holidays...

We had about 4 inches of snow for Christmas day, just enough to make it pretty. And then we got socked with what is now about 2 feet, but it's hard to measure because the wind is so strong that there are drifts of 5 feet or more. As soon as the blessed Mr. Kelley snowblows the driveway, or as soon as the frigid farm folks blaze a path to the chicken coop, the wind pushes the snow right back in place.

I did a short weekend in NJ just before Christmas, and managed quite a few visits with friends and family. The Husband is on his way back today from an even shorter weekend down there. He left yesterday just as the second snow this week was starting, making for a slow trip. I hope his return trip goes a bit more smoothly—at least the sun is shining today.

The goats seem to enjoy the snow, or at least ignore it, unlike the pigs. Since I was on farm duty today while the Hub was away, I got to spend some quality time with all of the kids. The poor chickens are not happy "all cooped up", but their feathers do a good job of keeping them warm. Poor piggies on the other hand have virtually no hair, so they spend most of their time happily cooped up in the shed. They do like visits however—the second piggie pic is Steve and Eydie singing "Baby It's Cold Outside". Frank wasn't in the mood for singing today.

The goats are no different than any other day: Lucille, in heat, whining, Jack and Helen looking for more food to dump on the floor...

But the dogs are quite happy to sleep the day away right next to the woodstove, which pretty much describes my feelings as well.

The obedient Wood Man

The Wood Man came to us in August just months after graduating from "Obedience Class" in NJ. In the top photo he is looking very obedient, letting me take a nap with his butt as the pillow. The next photo, however, shows the true spirit of the hound boy—tail wagging a mile a minute, proud of the mess he just made of my "kindling" by the wood pile while I was talking on the phone.

The days of Woody running free have ended for now. A week ago he ignored The Husband's calls and ran across Rt. 28 to visit the horses again! The Hub got him out of there and back across the street, only to have him turn around and run right up the middle of the road while cars were doing their best to avoid him. Four kind people had to stop to help corral the bad boy and send him back home.

Then he ran off again the next night (while I was in work) and the following night when I came home from work at 7 pm and could not get him in until after 9. And only then after hunting him down, in the dark, and leashing him. At least both of these times he stayed away from the road...we think... As far as I can tell he spends his night romps chasing the night critters in the woods. Maybe he's trying to live up to his name, Wood Man.

I was sorely tempted to borrow a shock collar from Don on the Hill, one that beeps before it shocks, and starts with a shock I could barely feel, but after doing some research online, I ended up on positivedogs.com, a site promoting positive reinforcement training. Most if not all positive trainers hate shock collars, so I was pretty easily convinced that was not the solution. Turns out the humans are the ones who need the training, the dogs learn pretty quickly once they are given clear direction.

Pam Dennison, who runs the website, called me the same night after I e-mailed her to ask a few questions. We don't really know each other, but both graduated from Rowan as art students in 1978. Rather than signing up for her online classes (and because I need more immediate help!) I am starting with her book—The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training—which I've had for years but never read all the way through.

Believe it or not, Woody has already made some progress, but it will take many more weeks of training before I can trust him off-leash again. In the meantime he is taking out his frustrations on the wood pile, Sophie, The Hub and me! I told Pam I would take some photos and videos of the Bad Wood, so we could have something to compare to the fully trained obedient Wood Man photos. Hopefully they won't be too far off in the future.

Take a few minutes and check out this video from Positive Dogs. This will be our goal, Wood Man. To get your perfectly trained self back off-leash again, some time soon!