The Quack Shack

[WannaBeHillBilly]

That's great! A happy day for everybody.

Is it not early yet for cucumbers and squashes? What are the temperatures like for you? We've just pulled out of a cold week (after several unusually hot ones). I've spent the day turning things around in the greenhouse to make room for tomato and cucumber plants. Had to move several fully grown lettuce plants (of the variety where individual leaves are harvested), if they don't take root the ducks can have them. Well, they can have some in either case.

It seems that spring comes here significantly earlier than in your area! Temperatures way over 20° on the weekend and today we were slow-cooking at 35°! I have planted the first Kale outside (see way below), The potato plants are about 20cm tall and the peppers/chillies are growing lots of new leaves.
I had to water a lot of plants - and ducks - today, there is rain in the forecast, so i planted as much as i could outside. If the rain evaporates, i will run around with hoses and buckets tomorrow…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Leftover goslings there is no such thing leftover goslings that is an oxymoron for sure! What the sign says is.. run run run. There’s only a few left of these amazing fantastic Fabulous spectacular wonderful GOSLINGS!! You don’t want to miss out!! run run run! if you snooze you lose

Trust. Me! - I would have bought them if i'd be able to accommodate them accordingly. But together with over 50 ducks? - No. And right now i am somewhat overwhelmed with the garden. As usual, spring sprung from one day to the next…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I am trying to make a video of broody Trudy goose running around the yard like a crazy person on her eight minute and 53 second off the nest sprees, but Charlie hates me to follow them with the camera. she is now day 20…
oh, and I can’t believe I missed filming it when she suddenly realized she had to go back started running and then flew over two fences in a row to get back to her eggies. (I guess she figured she didn’t have time to walk through the open gates.)

So broody geese are as crazy as broody ducks!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

BYC is trying to cheer me up and gave me a one-year anniversary badge Time flies!

Congrats! - It will be five years before you even realize…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Here are some from today's "hello world" experiment, they are so small it's hard to even see them.

The other ducks came quickly to explore the strange structure and there was some peeping and quacking back and forth. When the flock moved away the little ones tried to follow. So - first contact went well.

Good job with that duckling box! They will have it much easier to join the flock with having contact from early on.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

i just candled Trudy’s 4 goose eggs and i saw movement in 3 of them!! the other one ( the youngest) looks almost the same but i didn’t watch long enough for moving i was so nervous the geese were coming back! but i did see what looks like veins and feathers and an air space looks good hoping 4 little miracles come out to play next week!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

SO with the weather forecast for May not showing any overnight frost its time to start planting. Somehow all the Kale/Cabbage/Kohlrabi grew very slow this year so i was just able to "release" four Kale plants into the wild:

And i planted the Tundra Haskap shrub into the Berry garden:

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Over the weekend i was busy getting the roses back under control:

They are already full of flower buds and will start feeding the bees very soon. And because some dux have taken over the patio, a warning sign had to go up:

 

[Supercow]

It seems that spring comes here significantly earlier than in your area! Temperatures way over 20° on the weekend and today we were slow-cooking at 35°! I have planted the first Kale outside (see way below), The potato plants are about 20cm tall and the peppers/chillies are growing lots of new leaves.
I had to water a lot of plants - and ducks - today, there is rain in the forecast, so i planted as much as i could outside. If the rain evaporates, i will run around with hoses and buckets tomorrow…

Traditionally for us the rule has been wait for the second week of May to be really sure all the potentially damaging cold periods are gone. In the last decade or so this has not been so important but for sure we don't have 35 C yet - we had almost 30 a fortnight ago and then got ambushed by -2.

It's dry here also though. Thankfully we have a well with an electric pump so I have several long hoses lying around - it's always possible to grab a nearby one and go for it.

 

[Supercow]

That is devastating! - You say you have environment sensors everywhere? Do they record the relative humidity? If your climate is very dry with a relative humidity often below 40% you must indeed take action to keep the humidity up in the incubator.
I never ran into this issue, here the humidity rarely drops below 50% (75% right now), so i have more of the opposite problem that the air-bubble stays too small and they have issues with internal pipping.
Candle the eggs more often, that's all i have as an advice at the moment.

That's the spirit! - Or is it the beginning of an addiction?

You ain't seen nothing yet!
Wait, when the flies realize that there's duck-shit everywhere!

As said above: I don't. But i candle every day and i make a safety hole into the air-bubble, sometimes even before they pip internally.
And last year's duxlings were all lazy-bones: I think all but Harry and Sunny needed some level of assistance and Walgreens didn't want to come out at all.

Oh it's gonna be an addiction for sure...

You say you make a safety hole as a rule, when is that roughly, which day after starting up the incubator?