life moves on: thats my six buck duck and a few others

Update on the Farm

them crazy ducks and one wacky goose

It’s cold and continued cold and miserable so much so I have not had much desire to do much outside due to the adverse conditions. By the time I am ready to go out and confront this nasty weather it is almost time to hang it up because it gets dark early. Well this kinda sucks so I have been working inside and I took a few photos of outside so that those of you who live around me can empathize with my lack of willingness to get in to much of a hurry about anything due to extreme suckiness. Snow soaked rain ice covers our ground. Almost a foot thick of the congealed mess covers the ground and makes crunching noises as your feet break through the crust and shatter the frozen bond. The cavity created below serves to try and severe your foot as try to pull it out of the icy mess and walk grudgingly.

My back hurt just walking on the new snow yesterday before it started to rain, and although the ice crusted stuff offers resistance you sometimes have incidences where you lose your foot. Can’t win and were never supposed to I guess. I love winter in some instances but as soon as it really begins, I just can’t wait to change into I can’t wait for spring mode.

It is Groundhog Day and I think Puxatawney Phil leads a sheltered life and is always predicting more winter. It was dark this morning here, kind of gray with hints of dismal, and doubt it was much better in Puxatawney, Pennsylvania. But still they said they saw his shadow. I think he sees his shadow every year from all the flashes going off taking his picture and all the lights necessary to make the hoopla happen. Instead of the pomp and circumstance that those in Pennsylvania use I say load Puxatawney Phil’s ass up in a Ford 4 WD drive pick-em-up and haul his ass up a holler somewhere and heave the varmint out the window, as you body slide to a stop on a back country gravel road where the little creature came from. Turn the hound dogs loose and see if you see his shadow as he hauls ass away. This is more in the natural way of doing things and would give much better results than being man handled by some zoo keepers who in appropriately touch animals.

Well I also included pics of my ducks in the winter. Not that I inappropriately touch them , hell I am lucky to get as close as 6 feet away from them and daily they traverse from one open spot on the pond to another during the day for what reason I don’t know. It’s like they eat at one and crap at the other but again I am not sure. I think any good FBI profiler should have a herd of ducks such as mine and try to figure out what they will do next. It is impossible but surely an exercise for the mind. I made them shelter at what I thought was going to be a good place along the ponds edge but they have only used it a couple of times instead opting to spend the night in the cold water. A particular reason they might flock to either of these two locations I think has to do with spring water coming into the pond more than anything and it is also the reason that the water is open there, as the spring water is warmer and at 55 degrees as compared to the ice, so it only stands to reason why they like both spots as they are both springs. The one also has a muskrat den that overhangs and that also shelters the ducks from the cold and predators due to steep sides of the pond. this is used mainly at night and the other is used during the day.

duck shelter i made for them prior to winter, and used a couple of times but now since it is bad hardly used?

One funny thing is that if I stand up there too much watching them they will get out of their water holes, and stand up the hill away from the ponds and look at me. They always keep you guessing at times. Sometimes I think they all have Alzheimer’s and forget I am the one that feeds them. They will quack at me and raise hell if I don’t feed them and turn their backs on me if i do. Strangest bunch of animals I ever saw. But then that may be their defense acting quacky, you really wouldn’t expect anything less or more from them. Yet they survive and flourish where other animals don’t. So they must be doing something right.

some dogs carry sticks mine carries firewood and logs

I am also including preliminary floor plan of the new addition to farm manager’s office. I finally received my drafting machine and find old school still works well in some instances. I am just still studying the design and this is by no means written in stone as I think this thing through. But it does give you an idea of what the foot print is going to look like for now.