Thursday, July 30, 2009

More Duck Pictures


The duck in the foreground is Cyrus. He is the other male (Sampson was pictured in the last post). The are both good ducks, but Sampson really is the better of the boys. He watches while every one else, including Cyrus head full throttle into the food dish in the morning.
These are some of the girls. Hard to tell who is who here, and only some of the ducks have names. Gloria, Gladys from New Jersey, Josephine and Louisa. I can only sometimes pick Little out of the group. She has to be standing next to the other small brown ducks in order for me to tell them apart. She is the one with the slimmest neck.

Here is everyone alert to noises. It is funny, if they are startled by sounds like a hawk or something far off, they tighten up the herd and come toward me if I am out with them. It is about as much affection as I am likely to get from them.

Wanna check out someone else raising runners in an urban setting? Check out this guy. He is sooo much more reliable at blogging.... They just had a duck party. We were hoping for something similar. Of course, we may have to do it to celebrate our first egg (in September if all goes well) rather than any of the other milestones that we have passed.

These are not ducks, in case you were wondering. This is the first of our potato harvest. This happens to be about 11 pounds of LaRatte, which is a delightful fingerling potato that we grew last year. These are actually from seed potatoes that we saved over the winter.

This is the weekend to plant fall stuff. I have a small patch of carrots doing well so far, but that is all. The SB helped me haul horse poop down for the beds and I dug in lots of amendments. I am hoping for a reasonable season.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Summer

It feels like summer now. We have had some heat, though overall, the weather has been merciful - cool evenings and mornings make ALL the difference. The mosquitoes are just starting to get bad. We are eating pasta with tomatoes, garlic and basil twice a week, at least. I have yellow squash for miles which I started to cook and freeze. Yesterday I put seeds out in the garden for carrots, leeks and parsnips (at least 2 of my neighbors have told me the difference between store bought and home grown parsnips is worth it... I figured I would give it a shot as I didn't like beets until I grew them myself). In a flat I have sown broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale. I plan on more things, but I need some more space in the garden. Soon I will put out more chard seeds, beets and start the spinach and salad greens. I want more fennel too. My okra isn't so impressive and I have been getting only a few cukes, but they have been delicious. The tomatillos are still growing. If that all goes well it will be a big year. I am harvesting potatoes plant by plant - restraining myself from digging up the whole bed. My garlic harvest was satisfactory and I am holding back heads for planting in October/November... My house mate says you plant on the shortest day of the year and harvest on the longest. I can't wait that long... When the weather gets nice I want to be out there. The SB and I are considering the garden expansion - maybe in time for fall crops....

The ducks have decided they are afraid of the creek. When we let them out of the pen, they race toward the swimming hole and then stare at the water. When they get back to the pen, they fight over who gets to stand in the water dish. No idea what this is all about. We will likely be getting them a pool as soon as we can figure out how to make it work. Dumping and filling a pool is a lot of water and a lot of work, so we will need to figure something out.

And here they are.... Along with the first 11 pounds of fingerling potatoes from the auxiliary


And this is Sampson. Handsome, isn't he?

Friday, July 10, 2009

Hala-freakin'-luja

Ducks are in the duck house. Still details to work out but they are safe and out of the basement. Could we ask for anything more?

Pictures this weekend. Rilly.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Eventually

I am a total loser. But here, in brief, is some of the last month or so in a list (because SHG loves a list and I miss her).

1. The SB is home. Woo hoo.
2. The ducks are still in the basement. It is like the Peabody Hotel around here in the evenings. Absurd.
3. Hopes of finishing the duck house over the long holiday weekend - dashed.
4. Harvested delicious varieties of potatoes, some fennel, yellow squash and lots of basil and parsley. Some jalapenos, some blueberries (unfortunately these are a fav of the ducks).
5. Working my ass off on the duck house and garden. Rest of house and garden going to hell.
6. Unbelievably fantastic weather. I wore a sweater ALL DAY. In July. Gimme a shout out people, this rocks.
7. Roasting a chicken with some beets and potatoes now. Woo hoo. It is 10:25. Boo.
8. Not as social as I used to be.
9. The ducks rock. They were out grazing all day today.
10. Haven't talked to the bees in months. Wondering if there is honey I should be collecting.

Soo much more, but need pictures for the rest. Soon. Rilly.