Note To Self

"Self," going forward, we will not allow a broody duck to nest on our front porch.

At first it was very cute to have Mama duck climb the 12 stairs up unto the porch and lay a egg a day on one of my favorite winter garments. It was cute when she started to set on the eggs, and we thought baby ducklings hatching on the front porch would be a christening of sorts for the front porch we labored so hard to build.

Big mistake!!!

Ducks poop! its a fact of life with ducks, they eat, they poop. They eat lots, they poop lots. I think even if they did not eat they would poop.
Duck poop is a great fertilizer and I have some incredible, thick, green, unstoppable weeds to prove it.

Mama duck seems to hold onto her poop while she sits on her eggs and holds it and holds it, until she gets off her cute little nest, waddles her little body along the deck and lets go with a huge pile of the most fowl smelling poop ever to be released by a living creature.
This outrageous attack on my sense of smell can only be compared to changing a diaper, and cleaning up cat throw up at the same time.

If any of her eggs are going to hatch, they should hatch within a week, at which time all ducks and geese will be forbidden from relaxing on our porch. And hopefully next year when she attempts to build her nest up on our porch, our memories will override any thoughts of cuteness.

Mama Duck becomes very vocal when she decides she is hungry and will eagerly eat from hand or cup. If we could only teach her some manners.

Cool Neighbors

Scooby Doo has been a very popular visitor on our TV set for quite awhile.

From time to time, after a long day and I lay my tired head down on a pillow for the night, instead of some high thread count, extremely soft Egyptian cotton, I get to sleep with a hand me down Scooby Doo pillow case, along with Sponge Bob, Hello Kitty, and some orange and black fish from Disney.
I am looking forward to the hand me down Star Track pillow cases.

This summer we got ourselves a new neighbor, not just a neighbor but a whole family of them and I must say it is really nice to have the sound of family life coming from a property that laid empty for so long.

I don't mean to sound shallow, but one thing that really makes having these new neighbors great, They drive a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, and recently when a tree fell and covered the road, they parked it in our driveway. Now I ask you, "How cool is it to have a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine in your driveway and you can sit in it?"

What Is It?

No it is not a couple pieces of coal picked up along the railroad tracks.

No it is not something our geese left behind on the driveway for me to step in barefooted.

And no it is not a couple of pieces of prehistoric petrified dinosaur poop.

Give up??

This is one of the reasons they invented smoke detectors.

One morning last week a rare occasion occurred. I was home alone and the only breakfast I needed to prepare was my own.

So in a pan went some butter, oil, garlic, red wine vinegar and a couple of large, beautiful, juicy red cube steaks left over from a couple of nights past. I turned the burner on med and went to wipe the drool from my beard.

It seemed like minutes later( reality it was maybe a hour or more) I heard a strange mans electronic voice, FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!. I yelled a word we are not allowed to use and ran to the kitchen. No fire but the kitchen was filled with a toxic smelling grey smoke. I grabbed the smoking pan turned off the stove and quickly moved our two Parrots and two parakeets out onto the front porch. If that pan had been Teflon coated, chances are very good that Migo and Katanga would not have survived.

I ran fans all day in a attempt to rid the house of such a nasty smell, and decided to stick with a untoasted peanut butter sandwich.

I am not sure how long the punishment will last... but I am not allowed to touch any of Jeanne's pots or pans, and not allowed to use the stove unless the kids are here to supervise.

I still think those steaks with eggs would have been really tasty.

Angel Wings

Everyone who meets Wilbur will ask, "whats up with his wing?"

Wilbur has a incurable anatomical condition called Angle Wing. It also is called Slipped Wing, Crooked Wing, and Drooped Wing.

Two theories are floating around as to the cause of Angle wing.
First thought is diet, and a diet high in protein.
All the feed stores carry a game bird starter and grower, which is recommended for ducks and geese. The game bird starter is higher in protein compared to chick starter used for chickens. I personally make it a practise to use chick starter. I am not rising birds to rush to market, so to me, slower growth = stronger birds.

The second theory is genetic. I tend to lean toward this theory and believe it could even be a combination of the two.

Thankfully Wilbur has not figured out that he is a goose. he does not follow all the other geese down to the river, and is very happy to hang out around the house. If he choose a life on the river he most likely would not survive the winter.
When a goose or duck is afflicted with Angle Wing,the last joint of the wing is twisted with the wing feathers pointing almost straight out, instead of lying snug against the body. With these feathers protruding out, they most certainly would collect ice until the bird could no longer swim or move, and would freeze to death, or be caught by a predator.

So we are very happy that every night Wilbur marches to the chicken house, climbs up the steps and spends the night safely out of the weather.