Heel low:
Loved this book (Sci-Fi novel by Robert A. Heinlein)...read it as a kid. Loved the context that his c@t was always asking to go out...but not by the door into winter...the door into SUMMER...ha ha ha.
I love winter! LOVE it...bring on the winter's white! Get like ten months of it each year and snow in every single month..."Yeh, in August, ground white in July...gobs of crystalline H20 ice to bend leafed out trees over! No wonder our birds are resilient and strong...ha ha ha...wimps need not apply.
Burrow nesters, the Ruddies enjoy "cave like" quarters...makes them feel happy, makes them feel right at home...these bales of oat straw do make a most acceptable CAVE! (male left, female right)
So the pair of Ruddy Shels (Tadorna ferruginea is the formal Latin name of this waterfowl member of the swan, goose and duck family Anatidae)...they get antsy. First winter with us. Unrelated pair that was imported up from the Southern States...poor beasties had no idea, now did they?
Fixins doing the hoochy koochy...'cause she CAN! What a brat dougal, eh? She likes Romaine Lettuce too!
So dem Ruddies, they got moved like the two pairs of Aussie Black Swans do, to the Duck Barn where I have lotsa heat lamps that may be turned on...tidy, tender, lovely toasty accommodations. A home away from winter...comfy quarters to survive and prosper residing in.
So I was bashing out rubber buckets, full of solid ice with my good right hand Aussie Cattle Dog friend, the Fix... Got the doors wide open on the Ruddy Shel's pen which makes lugging heavy laden buckets out easier.
I am not the kind to tell the creatures what to do and not do...so if someone wants out, "Well sure...there you go. Have some fun!" I won't let them go out at dusk in a snow storm but if you want out on a nice sunny winter's day...there you be. I find working with the critter's wishes much less stressful on them. "You wanna go...you go! Don't let lil' old moi stop you!"
The Ruddy hen, she was so intent on going...going I figure to find the DOOR INTO SUMMER..."Good luck with that Girlie!"
Course the male, he's game. He will follow his lady to he77 and back...that is just what males do. She says, "Move!" He moves...
She says, "Jump!" he jumps on ahead of her and gets boogying. Poor buggers...those webbers padding on the packed ice and snows...Whatever, gotta figure out their take on the world, eh?
Man can they move...all I could manage is stop and click pic and hurry on up....Before my quarry disappears round the next bend in the path chosen by the female...
Sure glad we are so well perimeter fenced...good luck with going outside the boundaries but that still leaves alot of real estate for them to run wild on...Do waterfowl run with the bulls?
Nope...there's the Fancy Footed Fix, Australian CATTLEdog (no bull there...she's a real COW dawg) to my rescue!
Fixins is an awesome herder girl dog...knows just the right amount of force or no force to use. Such a sweetness with her birdles...them stock dogs ARE the reason we have stock!
Can you hear the webbers engage into lock down? Black rubber like webbers...no wonder the male HONKS...ha ha ha...rubberized webber toes on a tiny version of a big ol' long haulin' MACK truck. C. W. McCall would be so proud..."This here's the wubber footed folly..."
There, now a slow saunter for the pair past the other pens in the Duck Barn.
A glance the other way..."Yeh, no summer that way!" either.
So into the Duck Barn they go. Back home...home sweet home.
HONK!!!
Male in foreground showing off his back neck ring.
No door into summer here...no where to be found but no matter!
Soon enough the spring will hit. Be slip sliding in the mud and on the way more ice. Move them back out to the Goose and Swan area. Good to go and there will be their "door into summer" fer sure.
Spring can't be too far off. Getting a real bounty of duck eggs...Call, Indie, Oz Spot, then Appleyards, Durch Hookbills, and the Crested...even got a Turkey egg the other day. Silly girls...I don't want NO poults in a month!
"Nope, not yet my sweet productives...not quite yet. Soon...soon ALL doors will lead out into summer."
But in the mean time...to the Ruddy pair..."Stay in yer pen when I have the door wide open!" Unless of course you "like" padding round about, on a walkabout in the snowy drifts. Bwa ha ha ha...
Tucked back in their winter vacation home...male on left, female on right keeping an eye on that other reddy female of Dad's--that dog Fixins!
Winter wonderland of white...jest can't seem to remember the green...was it EVER green here...well was it?
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
edited by staff
Loved this book (Sci-Fi novel by Robert A. Heinlein)...read it as a kid. Loved the context that his c@t was always asking to go out...but not by the door into winter...the door into SUMMER...ha ha ha.
I love winter! LOVE it...bring on the winter's white! Get like ten months of it each year and snow in every single month..."Yeh, in August, ground white in July...gobs of crystalline H20 ice to bend leafed out trees over! No wonder our birds are resilient and strong...ha ha ha...wimps need not apply.
Burrow nesters, the Ruddies enjoy "cave like" quarters...makes them feel happy, makes them feel right at home...these bales of oat straw do make a most acceptable CAVE! (male left, female right)
So the pair of Ruddy Shels (Tadorna ferruginea is the formal Latin name of this waterfowl member of the swan, goose and duck family Anatidae)...they get antsy. First winter with us. Unrelated pair that was imported up from the Southern States...poor beasties had no idea, now did they?
Fixins doing the hoochy koochy...'cause she CAN! What a brat dougal, eh? She likes Romaine Lettuce too!
So dem Ruddies, they got moved like the two pairs of Aussie Black Swans do, to the Duck Barn where I have lotsa heat lamps that may be turned on...tidy, tender, lovely toasty accommodations. A home away from winter...comfy quarters to survive and prosper residing in.
So I was bashing out rubber buckets, full of solid ice with my good right hand Aussie Cattle Dog friend, the Fix... Got the doors wide open on the Ruddy Shel's pen which makes lugging heavy laden buckets out easier.
I am not the kind to tell the creatures what to do and not do...so if someone wants out, "Well sure...there you go. Have some fun!" I won't let them go out at dusk in a snow storm but if you want out on a nice sunny winter's day...there you be. I find working with the critter's wishes much less stressful on them. "You wanna go...you go! Don't let lil' old moi stop you!"
The Ruddy hen, she was so intent on going...going I figure to find the DOOR INTO SUMMER..."Good luck with that Girlie!"
Course the male, he's game. He will follow his lady to he77 and back...that is just what males do. She says, "Move!" He moves...
She says, "Jump!" he jumps on ahead of her and gets boogying. Poor buggers...those webbers padding on the packed ice and snows...Whatever, gotta figure out their take on the world, eh?
Man can they move...all I could manage is stop and click pic and hurry on up....Before my quarry disappears round the next bend in the path chosen by the female...
Sure glad we are so well perimeter fenced...good luck with going outside the boundaries but that still leaves alot of real estate for them to run wild on...Do waterfowl run with the bulls?
Nope...there's the Fancy Footed Fix, Australian CATTLEdog (no bull there...she's a real COW dawg) to my rescue!
"STOP the RUDDY RUN!"
Fixins is an awesome herder girl dog...knows just the right amount of force or no force to use. Such a sweetness with her birdles...them stock dogs ARE the reason we have stock!
SCREECH...
Can you hear the webbers engage into lock down? Black rubber like webbers...no wonder the male HONKS...ha ha ha...rubberized webber toes on a tiny version of a big ol' long haulin' MACK truck. C. W. McCall would be so proud..."This here's the wubber footed folly..."
There, now a slow saunter for the pair past the other pens in the Duck Barn.
A glance the other way..."Yeh, no summer that way!" either.
So into the Duck Barn they go. Back home...home sweet home.
Male in foreground showing off his back neck ring.
No door into summer here...no where to be found but no matter!
Soon enough the spring will hit. Be slip sliding in the mud and on the way more ice. Move them back out to the Goose and Swan area. Good to go and there will be their "door into summer" fer sure.
Spring can't be too far off. Getting a real bounty of duck eggs...Call, Indie, Oz Spot, then Appleyards, Durch Hookbills, and the Crested...even got a Turkey egg the other day. Silly girls...I don't want NO poults in a month!
"Nope, not yet my sweet productives...not quite yet. Soon...soon ALL doors will lead out into summer."
But in the mean time...to the Ruddy pair..."Stay in yer pen when I have the door wide open!" Unless of course you "like" padding round about, on a walkabout in the snowy drifts. Bwa ha ha ha...
Tucked back in their winter vacation home...male on left, female on right keeping an eye on that other reddy female of Dad's--that dog Fixins!
Winter wonderland of white...jest can't seem to remember the green...was it EVER green here...well was it?
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
edited by staff
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