Wow that was very mellow! My kids & I have watched as many of your videos as we can find, because they really are funny! We actually watched the one in the garden 3x because it was hysterical. Ultimately my favorite was the one where they bustle out into the snow & cram onto the hay pile looking totally confused then rush back into the house. We could hear them all saying, "No!No!Nope!Nope!No!No!Nope!No!"
Good to know that's not an all day thing & that they're not as tall in person as we thought they'd be. I love the one in the video with the spots on her head. Its that considered a Splash?
-Charlene
Ever since their second year, the Runners have been getting "snow" feathers. They started out chocolate and black. Zehn was our last holdout, she did not start getting snow feathers till she was perhaps three years old. But Zwei, she's chocolate, and probably has 20 or 30 brown feathers now - otherwise she is white.
Indeed, they do say "No!No!Nope!Nope!No!No!Nope!No!" especially to the first snowfall. One day last year, I think it was still 12F at nearly noon, so I opened the door to the night pen and offered to let them go outside. They all stopped at the door sill and said "No!No!Nope!Nope!No!No!Nope!No!" turned on their ducky heels and stayed in the rest of the day, content.
There are occasional conferences. We live just upstairs from them, so we can all hear each other. And two or three times a night, I'll hear a conversation something like this:
"you awake? you awake?"
"Well, I wasn't."
"I'm awake."
"So I see."
"Who's awake?"
"Me"
"Now I am, too"
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. What are you doing"
"Is it morning already?"
"What?"
"I'm gonna find a snack"
"We ate the snacks at bedtime"
"you sure?"
and so forth, for a few minutes. They're doing it right now.
Oh, and kinda new recently - I must check in first thing in the morning even if it is not time to go outside, and I must check in a little while after we come in for the night, and if I go out, I have to report to the flock when I get back home, and then again at bedtime, and every now and then when Ion the cat gets me up at 5 a.m. for breakfast, I must go check on the duckies.
Alba, our adopted white Mallard, has now appointed herself She Who Watches Out for the Flock. She yells whenever Bean comes into view, and whenever there is anything she feels amiss. She chases Bean away from Romy, and stalks him if she suspects he is up to no good. Perhaps she knows I have been wondering if we'll ever find a livestock guard animal to replace me in that role, and so she is showing me how adept she is at that job.
