Yesterday we finally got the ducks outside. Phew. My house now smells a lot better. They really like their new home. There is an old dog kennel that my Dad built many years ago, and last year my husband was converting it to a clubhouse for my son. It was still in transition, and we needed somewhere to put the ducks, so my son said he doesn’t mind if we use it for them temporarily. We want to set up something more permanent, with a fenced yard/run, and a kiddie pool for them.
Also, our snow is melting!! We have had temperatures in the 70s today and yesterday. And I’m seeing signs of spring. It was waiting patiently for the snow to melt. Take a look at our spring time yard and ducks:
While we were working on reinforcing the duck house, I realized I saw some green over near the woods. And other surprises as well:
Today was in the 70s and my son was very anxious to get his pool filled up. Like the ducks, he is also obsessed with water. The water was too cold for him to swim – it takes a few days to warm up when it comes out of our hose. But he realized after filling it awhile that it was situated on a hill anyway – it wouldn’t have been very evenly filled. So he said we could let the duck use it today, before dumping it out to move it to a more level spot. They were very happy about that.
The ducks had a blast in the pool, and then we had to force them out so we could put them away for the night. We got them out and they sat in the grass, preening. We had carried them over to the pool. But after their swim, they were soaked. We wanted to see if we could get them to walk back to their house, which is about 40-60 feet away, across the front yard and our driveway. We tried luring them with food, which didn’t work. We tried calling them, but they didn’t want to follow us. I finally realized that I could get them to move (in a group) if I walked behind them, kind of shuffling them in the direction I wanted them to go. They got the hang of it after a bit, and got half way or so across the yard. It was a long walk for them, compared to what they are used to, but it worked pretty well. It was a little slow going. Then we realized that if they were to walk across the driveway they would get really muddy. So we carried them across the driveway back to their house.
My tiny u.p. farm 