I mean duck. I guess it actually should be duck, duck, duck, duck, duck - no goose. The ducks hatched over the weekend. Although I had no part in it and didn't even see the event I still felt like a worried mama when I checked the nest around 9 am on Saturday and it was empty. Much to my shock. Nothing except a few grey feathers hanging around. I was upset, but did think maybe they had hatched and were already heading for the pond. The weird thing, not one egg shell.
I got a phone call later that day from my neighbor congratulating me on the ducklings! Yay! So as a family we went to the pond to see if we could find them swimming happily around. No luck. I kept watch out for them until around 7pm, no ducks. Then I thought maybe they made a different nest and weren't coming back to our yard, which made me a little sad.
It stormed really bad all day on Saturday. It definitely wasn't the best day to hatch and learn how to swim. On Sunday, I was working on dinner when Trucker went berserk. I glanced up, because random squirrels will make him sound like that and usually it isn't anything to get excited about. Except this time! There was mama duck with her 5 ducklings splashing and playing in a puddle right out on our patio. They got scared and high tailed it out of the yard. So, we do have ducks. It seems that either some didn't hatch or some of them didn't make it through the first day which was a torrential downpour and high winds. But there are five and they are cute! I really am going to try and get some pictures, but those little suckers are really fast.
On another note, it is birthday season. A lot of Jac's friends have birthdays right around his. Which is a nice little build up to his big day. I think five is a pretty big birthday and definitely one that he will remember. He is going to have a space themed party and I hope that I can make it fun. He has been invited to a lot of the destination birthday spots - gymnastics places, bouncy places. We aren't quite ready to do something like that in the Carey household, hopefully his little party at the house will hold up to all those. If you have any great space ideas, let me know. I am toying with the idea of doing the cake myself, which I haven't done in a couple of years. We'll see, it is a lot of work.
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Dem R Ducks
So last night after walking Trucker, Jeff was hanging out in the backyard while I talked to our neighbor. When I came back there he said, "you have to come see this". Ooooh, what was so exciting?
He was in the middle of trimming up our last Maiden Grass and had the shears at hand and everything. He was pointing under the Arborvitae that is right next to the grass. I was leery. I don't trust him to not show me something utterly gross or disgusting, I was thinking dead carcass of some sort. Yuk. He assured me it wasn't "scary", hee hee. I looked and immediately gasped.
I couldn't tell exactly what it was at first. I knew it was a nest, but of what, kittens? bunnies? I looked a third time, eggs. Hunh. There was a HUGE nest on the ground under a tree of eggs, an even dozen of whitish, yellowish enormous, almost chicken egg size, eggs. What in the world?
I looked at Jeff, perplexed. What builds a nest on the ground, geese? We are at least a half mile from the neighborhood pond. Seems like you would want to build your soon to be swimming infants by a pond, not by a fence in our backyard where a DOG lives. Oh my.
So we talked to our neighbor, she is a grandma and very wise about nature stuff. She looked at it and said, ducks. She has been watching a pair of ducks (mommy and daddy) in her backyard latelly and jokingly said to her husband, "sure hope they don't build a nest in our backyard"! Lucky us. Right as we were talking we looked over the fence into our other neighbors yard, there were two ducks splashing around in the inch or two of water that was on the top of their pool cover. This is not a pond, mommy and daddy duck, this is a pool with a yucky film of pollen, leaves and other gluck that has accumulated over the winter. By the way, when that cover comes off it will be CHLORINATED water, not water that you want your precious babies swimming around in. Not to mention the fact that there is no food for them in that pristinely blue water. I am not sure that a duckling could even get OUT of the pool, another terrible problem.
Then I start thinking of predators. Um, let's see, Trucker the Dog lives in this yard for one, clearly they didn't do a lot of reconnaissance when they set up house. There are not one but two neighborhood cats, who help keep the mole population down and evidently now will help with the duckling population. We also have a hawk that hangs out in our Blue Spruce tree. It is going to be a war zone Mutual of Omaha style in our yard.
And the poop, I am sure we are going to see our fair share of duck poop.
But regardless of all that, it would be really cool if these ducklings hatched and then slowly grew and the kids could watch. I will not feed this ducks, that I assure you. These ducks will need to make it on their own. I also won't be on carcass clean up duty, Jeff will need to handle any issues there. But I will say a little prayer for their family and that their babies grow up and fly far, far away.
He was in the middle of trimming up our last Maiden Grass and had the shears at hand and everything. He was pointing under the Arborvitae that is right next to the grass. I was leery. I don't trust him to not show me something utterly gross or disgusting, I was thinking dead carcass of some sort. Yuk. He assured me it wasn't "scary", hee hee. I looked and immediately gasped.
I couldn't tell exactly what it was at first. I knew it was a nest, but of what, kittens? bunnies? I looked a third time, eggs. Hunh. There was a HUGE nest on the ground under a tree of eggs, an even dozen of whitish, yellowish enormous, almost chicken egg size, eggs. What in the world?
I looked at Jeff, perplexed. What builds a nest on the ground, geese? We are at least a half mile from the neighborhood pond. Seems like you would want to build your soon to be swimming infants by a pond, not by a fence in our backyard where a DOG lives. Oh my.
So we talked to our neighbor, she is a grandma and very wise about nature stuff. She looked at it and said, ducks. She has been watching a pair of ducks (mommy and daddy) in her backyard latelly and jokingly said to her husband, "sure hope they don't build a nest in our backyard"! Lucky us. Right as we were talking we looked over the fence into our other neighbors yard, there were two ducks splashing around in the inch or two of water that was on the top of their pool cover. This is not a pond, mommy and daddy duck, this is a pool with a yucky film of pollen, leaves and other gluck that has accumulated over the winter. By the way, when that cover comes off it will be CHLORINATED water, not water that you want your precious babies swimming around in. Not to mention the fact that there is no food for them in that pristinely blue water. I am not sure that a duckling could even get OUT of the pool, another terrible problem.
Then I start thinking of predators. Um, let's see, Trucker the Dog lives in this yard for one, clearly they didn't do a lot of reconnaissance when they set up house. There are not one but two neighborhood cats, who help keep the mole population down and evidently now will help with the duckling population. We also have a hawk that hangs out in our Blue Spruce tree. It is going to be a war zone Mutual of Omaha style in our yard.
And the poop, I am sure we are going to see our fair share of duck poop.
But regardless of all that, it would be really cool if these ducklings hatched and then slowly grew and the kids could watch. I will not feed this ducks, that I assure you. These ducks will need to make it on their own. I also won't be on carcass clean up duty, Jeff will need to handle any issues there. But I will say a little prayer for their family and that their babies grow up and fly far, far away.
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