Fair is fowl, fowl is fair.

[fowltemptress]

I knew posting my bird count would lead to more ducklings. Shirley finally hatched a few of her own.

I'm curious to see if she can hang on to them. Annie's clutch all went bad; I don't know what is up with that girl, because she can't seem to sit on eggs without them rotting. But as soon as she heard the cheeps of everyone else's ducklings she switched to mama mode, and as of today Annie has successfully stolen the ducklings of all her fellow muscovy hens.

Where she goes, ducklings follow, giving no thought at all to the hens who spent so much time and effort hatching them out. Children, amirite?

though there is something to be said for freedom. Genghis here doesn't seem overly concerned that her hatchlings have chosen a different hen, but she is  very concerned that I approached her without treats. She can forgive an ungrateful offspring, but a human without grubs? Unforgivable!

The ducklings grow fast! They're already at the age that I can tell the males from the females, and it looks like this year heavily favored males! I'm always thrilled when that happens.

Two males hanging out . . .

. . . and a dainty female enjoying a stretched out foot. It's the poultry equivalent of throwing the sheets off your legs.

I was going to try to take a picture a day of one of them starting with hatch day, but I forgot. A project for next year?



A guinea is sitting on eggs in the goose coop, and a different one from last year. My favorite guineas are the white ones, so I'm relieved whenever I see a white hen that's decided to brood in safety.

Klaus and Remus are always going at it through the fence. It cracks me up to watch even as I thank goodness for the fence. Without that barrier, the fighting between them is a scary thing. I've no idea why these two decided to be mortal enemies.

 

[fowltemptress]

My father has started sending out a Christmas card every year with a collage of pictures of my siblings and their spouses. Everyone is spruced up with nice clothes, great hair, and makeup done perfectly. He didn't manage to get a picture of my husband and me last year, so he made it his mission to get one this year - a mission he promptly forgot until the very last minute, when he was about to leave our house for the long drive home. It was morning, I was in the middle of things in the garden, and my husband, who enjoys sleeping in on weekends after a hard work week, had just walked out to groggily bid my father drive "wrecklessly."

So try to picture receiving one of those Christmas card collages. The pictures all have great lighting, with the couples in the photos wearing dresses or suits and basically giving off an overall vibe of not being the sort to forget about having their picture taken. Then something out of place catches your eye . . .

(But first! Ignore our faces. We normally don't go so heavy on the yellow spray tan.)

I'm also wearing a big floppy hat under that ginormous face of mine. Didn't even think to take it off.

I know I should probably dig up and send my father a photo that's less, er, candid, but now that I've seen this picture I know I'll regret it if I deny my family and my father's friends the opportunity to witness me in all my fashionista glory. Those BYC shirts are so hot right now!

That's my garden behind us. I am decidedly not a gardener, but somehow we wind up with vegetables on our dinner table year after year so I must be doing something right. The fence around it is an absolute patchwork abomination; it's a culmination of all my attempts to keep my own dang chickens out. Deer? No problem. Rabbits? Barely make a dent. Chickens? We will raze your greenery and salt the earth!
And for some reason all my chickens are stymied by the little four foot fence that separates their area from the geese and ducks, but as soon as the same fence encloses a vegetable garden they turn into fence scaling geniuses with wings every bit as flight-capable as those of a hawk. I extended the height of the fence by pounding pvc pipe onto the t-posts and connecting more fencing (sloppily) to those, which has managed to keep all but one very enterprising chicken out.

Sometimes I look at all the adorable coops and pretty fencing people post on here and think maybe I should make more of an effort to "pretty things up." But now I look at this future Christmas card highlight that my father took, and I think to myself, "Baby steps might be asking too much here. Let's go with zygote steps."

None of this keeping up with the Joneses matters, though, when you have geese to snuggle.

Oh, and I've been harvesting cucumbers lately and took a picture of one that drew my attention. Just leaving it here next to a picture of a sheep for no reason in particular. No need to look for similarities or anything ridiculous like that.

 

[Gill-b]

My sides hurt from laughing.

I love your Christmas card picture. Embrace it in all its rural outdoor this-is-me glory.