The Quack Shack

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Frank, I have not seen you on here for so long. I pray all is well with you and your flock. Miss seeing you on here.

Apologies!
I am overwhelmed with my new job!
Since May fifth i am working for the State of West Virginia.
Had planned to post the good news here a month ago, but wasn't able to.
My first day was May fifth and since then i am permanently fighting an uphill battle. Not being a morning person at all i have a hard time to get out of the house early in the morning and then spend a full eight hours in a cubicle without having the opportunity to take a break in the dux-house.
On my very first day, we had a hail-storm that destroyed almost all of my nursery plants i had planned to sell on the market, more than $1000 loss. The cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, zucchinis and melons all smashed. The tomatoes severely damaged...
I had to re-seed new pumpkin-family members and melons plants for myself, the tomatoes were too damaged to sell anymore, so i am now sitting on over 100 tomato plants with no plot to plant those.
So i have started to scalp a larger than planned plot of my pasture for the pumpkin family plus many many tomatoes. I need to set up a fence to keep the duckies out of the tomatoes, they won't touch those hairy zucchinis, pumpkins, ...
My shift is from 8am to 4pm, i need to leave the house at 7am and am back at 5pm which leaves me only a few hours for everything. And i feel permanently exhausted, sometimes i go to be without even eating dinner.
But hey, things will get better, today i found out how to connect to BYC from here, so i will be around more in the future.

 

[Supercow]

Apologies!
I am overwhelmed with my new job!
Since May fifth i am working for the State of West Virginia.
Had planned to post the good news here a month ago, but wasn't able to.
My first day was May fifth and since then i am permanently fighting an uphill battle. Not being a morning person at all i have a hard time to get out of the house early in the morning and then spend a full eight hours in a cubicle without having the opportunity to take a break in the dux-house.
On my very first day, we had a hail-storm that destroyed almost all of my nursery plants i had planned to sell on the market, more than $1000 loss. The cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, zucchinis and melons all smashed. The tomatoes severely damaged...
I had to re-seed new pumpkin-family members and melons plants for myself, the tomatoes were too damaged to sell anymore, so i am now sitting on over 100 tomato plants with no plot to plant those.
So i have started to scalp a larger than planned plot of my pasture for the pumpkin family plus many many tomatoes. I need to set up a fence to keep the duckies out of the tomatoes, they won't touch those hairy zucchinis, pumpkins, ...
My shift is from 8am to 4pm, i need to leave the house at 7am and am back at 5pm which leaves me only a few hours for everything. And i feel permanently exhausted, sometimes i go to be without even eating dinner.
But hey, things will get better, today i found out how to connect to BYC from here, so i will be around more in the future.

Happy for you for having got the job!

And sad about your having to turn your life around to such a degree.

Hopefully things will stabilize and you'll find a way to continue doing the things you love in the time that's available.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Miss you all.

 

[Supercow]

Well you shouldn't be so inconveniently located, you're worse than me

 

[Supercow]

Ahem... I almost fell for a Facebook duck selling scam ) of all things... details later For now, just steer clear of Timothy’s Backyard Livestock.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Miss you all.

Where are you? We miss you too. You disappeared like miss Lydia but at least we have a way to check on her. I can ask cause I disssappeared for months too. I hope you are ok. I know I'm far far away but let me know if there is anything I can help with.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Ahem... I almost fell for a Facebook duck selling scam ) of all things... details later For now, just steer clear of Timothy’s Backyard Livestock.

I can't wait for the details.

 

[Luv Ducks]

Apologies!
I am overwhelmed with my new job!
Since May fifth i am working for the State of West Virginia.
Had planned to post the good news here a month ago, but wasn't able to.
My first day was May fifth and since then i am permanently fighting an uphill battle. Not being a morning person at all i have a hard time to get out of the house early in the morning and then spend a full eight hours in a cubicle without having the opportunity to take a break in the dux-house.
On my very first day, we had a hail-storm that destroyed almost all of my nursery plants i had planned to sell on the market, more than $1000 loss. The cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, zucchinis and melons all smashed. The tomatoes severely damaged...
I had to re-seed new pumpkin-family members and melons plants for myself, the tomatoes were too damaged to sell anymore, so i am now sitting on over 100 tomato plants with no plot to plant those.
So i have started to scalp a larger than planned plot of my pasture for the pumpkin family plus many many tomatoes. I need to set up a fence to keep the duckies out of the tomatoes, they won't touch those hairy zucchinis, pumpkins, ...
My shift is from 8am to 4pm, i need to leave the house at 7am and am back at 5pm which leaves me only a few hours for everything. And i feel permanently exhausted, sometimes i go to be without even eating dinner.
But hey, things will get better, today i found out how to connect to BYC from here, so i will be around more in the future.

So happy to hear from you Frank and know that you are alright. Thanks for stopping by. I am glad that you are employed and I pray that things get better with your job. So sorry you lost your plants.

 

[Supercow]

Ahem... I almost fell for a Facebook duck selling scam ) of all things... details later For now, just steer clear of Timothy’s Backyard Livestock.

Sooo this is how it went...

A week ago a guy came in and bought one of our WH drakes. We talked for a while, found out he's still on the lookout for WH and Cayuga hens, I told him we're also looking for more, etc etc...

Today he messages me: hey I found somebody who has our kind of ducks near Graz, Austria. Great! That's just 80 km or so (about 50 miles) away from us. Shall I take over the arrangements, bring the ducks to us and then you come over in the following days to pick up yours? Sure. Here's the contact.

I look at the FB profile - Timothy's Backyard Livestock, listing several US states and Dublin, Ireland. No Austria. Okay... let's talk anyway. I describe how I'm standing in for the person he talked to earlier, etc etc...

Can he offer WH hens? Yes.
Cayugas? Yes.
Oh and maybe one WH drake so we have different bloodlines? Yes.
How about a Silver Appleyard lady? Yes.
And throw in 2 KC girls while you're at it? Yes.
Wow, that's a lot of ducks.

Later on in the conversation my correspondent starts being a bit strange. Same reply copy pasted to several unconnected parts of my text. Some general feel good. Not replying directly to some questions. Hm.

When could I pick up the ducks? Next weekend, great.
Where?
...
...
Pince-Marof, Slovenia.
Okay, that's just 35 km or so from us. (But how is the pickup point suddenly in Slovenia...)
Where exactly in Pince-Marof?
Number 53.
Google maps ... Oh, I know this location. It's in the middle of nowhere, I've been there with my bike. Closest building not really immediately nearby. Flat land, high bushes and grass, very close to the Hungarian border.

My ears pick up I little and I start thinking - if you go to a remote location near an international border to "pick up ducks", maybe let the local police know you went there? Just in case? ...

I re-check the FB profile. It has 2 recommends. One is from a car page ?? and the other from a "personal vlog" who shares some graphics elements and talks in a similar style in public comments. Hmmmm.

I tell my duck-buying friend who gave me the contact: dude, this guy is giving me a really strange vibe.

On further thought, the only way all this makes sense is if it's a scam and he'll now ask for money up front.

Sure enough, here it comes: you need to pay a reservation fee, other people might be interested in the same ducks!

Yeah, no. We're not doing any advance payments. If this is a showstopper, we'll try other options, thanks, have a nice day.

OK, you too!

Conversation stops.

I'm an IT guy so I'm slightly connected to the field of AI. The way I see this situation is that AI tools became so easily useable and cheap that no market is too niche anymore. Build a FB chatbot, make a profile, try making it presentable, chat up a million random people interested in that particular thing, earn 1000 us. No work after the initial setup and a hundred bucks for an AI subscription.

Life is going to get so annoying...

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

R.I.P. Green Bill Duck!​

Came back home this afternoon and found one of Sunny Sunshine's daughters injured on my deck. She has a wound on her back and her right leg is ripped open, i can see the tendons, no clue if she will survive and if, if she will ever be able to use this leg. I have her in a laundry basket in my office, she is drinking but not eating. Covered the wounds with antibiotic ointment and vaseline to prevent the tissue from drying out... We'll see.

Looked around, counted ducks and Greenbill Duck is nowhere to be found. Blood stains and feathers behind the duck house, plenty of flies and then i found what was left of her… No pictures, it looked gruesome, something ate all of her organs and the meat from her neck. I buried her in the duck cemetery, rest in piece Greeny!

What predator would eat the organs and leave the rest of the carcass behind? Trash-Panda?
I have two large trash-pandas lurking around here, too clever to be trapped, tried for weeks without success…