Two (webbed) Footsteps Forward and One Back

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post comes a mainly duck-based one to catch us right up to schedule. Regular readers will know that we are running a small campaign to get back into ducks after recent losses to fox (and one of the terriers). We are also converting to some new varieties. The 'old school' Khaki Campbells from 2016/7 are now gone following our cull of the (2) aggressive drakes. That had left us with 3, then 2 youngsters hatched from our own eggs, the final eggs laid before the last female went extinct at the hands of the fox (13th May).

Delphinium

I had bought a Mum and 5 half-grown 'Appleyard' ducklings on 11th June. Readers may recall that these got landed into the long grass of the 'Hubbard Pen' and that although we knew they were settling in well, I had been unable to photograph them for you. They are real 'scaredy cats' and raced for cover as soon as a human appeared. Pictures of baby ducks in grass taller than they are is not really a thing.

"Rambling Rector" does his thing over the barn wall.

We knew they'd grow up eventually and want to come out and explore. We played the waiting game. In mid June, I 'ran out of breath', Elizabeth took over the stock and carried on with the feeding and schmoozing. She'd seen the two surviving Khaki's looking in at the newcomers through the chicken wire. It was looking good. We would let the Appleyards out free ranging when we were both there to supervise.

Mum Appleyard leads a first explore

Yesterday, I was just on a patrol, armed with a camera thinking I might get a pic of the 'Apps' around their new fruit-barrel drinker when I was confused to find a group of 6 ducks at the big pond. They must have squeezed out at the bottom corner of the gate and, by the time I saw them, they'd have met the Khakis and all seemed to be serene.

Pleasingly, there was not a sudden mass panic at the sight of me. The group gathered close round Mumma in that upright, vigilant stance that nervous ducks have. I sneaked a few pics, then quietly retreated to a distance to observe and texted Elizabeth. Not much point causing the big frightened upset rounding them all back up; we decided to bide our time till evening when they might just take themselves all off to bed. That was that for the pm, the joy of watching your new ducks explore the big pond, supervised by Mum and alongside the 2 Khakis.

New 6 meet old 2.

My 'backward step' of the title? Yes. It all went a bit downhill for a while, but not badly except for in the case of one Khaki. Elizabeth was home, I'd gone for a nap. I was getting up again when I may have (can't swear) heard an odd strangled squawk  out the back somewhere but Liz had heard nothing.

The only picture I have of all 8 ducks on the pond

It was a good hour later at the start of evening rounds, when she spotted that there was only one Khaki. The alarm went up and we searched far and wide but of the other bird there was no sign. We guess one more to the fox, returning on a day light raid 6 weeks after the last strike. 

Duck pond and blue sky

The evening was a bit of a mix of being sure that Brer Fox would not come back for a 2nd bird in the same day. This fox has not done that (yet). But at the same time, not wanting to risk him getting in amongst the new ones on their first day of free ranging. Long story short, it all ended well and everybody was safe for the night.

Not much else going on unless you want to hear of our continuing, decidedly non Irish heatwave which is now doing silly 30ºC stuff up in our corner. A friend has amusingly put up on  Twitter a couple of pics of her lane. She got hit by the bad snow when the 'Beast' struck over there in the East so her post has "The worst snow in 72 years and the hottest temps in 42 years, less than 4 months apart!"

Enough for this one. Wish us luck on keeping these ducks safe and enjoy the sunshine.

The Pest From The West

Dippy Goose Eggs. Breakfast of Champions.

Friends of the Blog will know that we had started our goose egg season with a first one laid on the 18th, the day after the layer's sister-bird had been killed by the fox. By tradition, though, in this house we get to eat these first eggs (rather than selling them giving them away) jointly at a breakfast, as 'dippy eggs'. We therefore have to wait for the 2nd egg to arrive (that was the 21st) and then for both of us to be available and in breakfasty mood. That brought us round to Saturday morning (24th) but the eggs did not disappoint. They were well worth the wait. Happy First-Goose-Eggs-of-the-Year-Day everyone.

Anchovy flavoured pizza.

We have also been messing around with pizza. Now that I am steadily into the sourdough baking (we buy very little shop bread any more) I was curious to see whether sourdough could be used as pizza base. Of course it can and no end of my contacts suggested recipes.

Pizzas (raw)

This will have the average 'Mum' laughing in her socks. These days they cut their baby-chef's teeth on pizza assembly; it is real kid's stuff taught to 4 year olds, but at 60 years old I had never actually made my own pizza base and then covered it in ingredients.

Chopped pork pizza

I am happy to report another cookery triumph and one of those in which you can claim a good few ingredients as home made from home grown basics. The sourdough was mine. The 'ragu' had been made by Elizabeth using the rib and breast trimming bits of our most recent lamb. The chopped roast pork which went into one of them was from our own pigs. Other ingredients were probably better than used in supermarket pizza - we used extra mature cheddar for the cheese for example and whole anchovy fillets, fresh salad peppers and onion. These bad boys positively BUZZed with flavour.

Fast growing lamb, Tigger, still takes Mumma's milk but is also
keen on grass, hay and the breakfast 'crunch'. 

The down side of this is that I may have shot myself in the foot. The Head Chef enjoyed it so much that she said "Right - THIS is how we do pizza from now on. No more shop bought stuff!"

Thick ice on the goose bath.

Meanwhile, we are now seeing the first real effects of the cold easterly air stream coming across UK and this island from Siberia, for which everyone now seems to be using the handle " #TheBeastFromTheEast " . We have had the dry, bitter winds for a week now and we are beautifully dried out and frozen firm most mornings, but across today and through to Friday the 'Beast' is forecast to up the ante and start dropping snow and hail on us.

Straw bales keep the wind out of the sheep shelter. The sheep
can hunker down behind a bale. 

Naturally, fore-warned we have been able to stock up on coal and animal feeds and I have bought extra straw bales to give protection to the eastern side of my sheep shelter. That is the theory anyway. In fact the sheep have mainly gone right over to the East side of the field and lain down under the thick hawthorn hedge. The bales are used by lamb Tigger for bouncing up and down 'stairs' on. If I had a Euro for every time I'd stood the walls back up.......

Feathers mark the murder scene and the arrow shows the
villain's escape route. 

In other news then, if the storm is called #TheBeastFromTheEast, then I am calling my fox, who comes from the other direction, #ThePestFromTheWest. Yes. He has been back. On Monday (26th) we were both indoors relaxing prior to me going out to do 'Fox-Watch' from about 4:30 pm till lock up, when suddenly the shout went up from the ever-reliable Guinea Fowl. Rushing to the front window I saw a stream of fleeing chickens sprinting right to left, away from the pond side.

Our #1 Buff Orpington rooster. This is Herme. He survived.
His son, who looked very similar, was the victim

Rushing into footwear and coats we raced out but we were too late. We found the sorry patch of feathers which marked the murder scene and from the colour we knew the fox had snatched a Buff Orpington chicken. We quickly checked all the survivors and worked out that the fox had snatched our #2 Buff Orpington rooster, 'Orion'. I let the dogs off - we now trust them not to kill chickens on the way out or back and they chased around for the trail but they were way too late.

Getting in supplies of feed and coalite to see us through
"The Beast"

Upside(s) to this story. This attack had me chasing up the fox-trap supplier and finding that all their orders for these traps would be dispatched today (27th) as they had now been received by them on the Monday. We should get that this week, all being well. Also a new rooster just coming of age and possibly becoming a nuisance is now saved from the 'relegation zone' and promoted to #3. He looks a bit Marans so might make a future replacement for our #1 bird, 'Gandalf'. Assuming Brer Fox does not get him, of course. Thirdly, the attack put me back on high alert so that today I spent a good part of the day patrolling around outside (yes, in the cold!) and happened to be out with the dogs this afternoon at 4 pm when The Pest came back.

The local Tidy Towns group kicked off
their 2018 season with a very good talk
on composting. 

The Guineas kicked off and I saw a duck fly up and bonk down again onto the frozen pond but I was quickly able to let the dogs out of the lawn-field and was very satisfied to see the three streak away in echelon formation, hot on the heels of the fleeing fox. I don't suppose they caught him for one moment (little legs!) but they were gone out of sight for a good 15-20 minutes and returned breathless and buzzing. Maybe the fox will think twice tomorrow, now he know the dogs here are not ALWAYS under 'control'.

Finally, with The Beast coming across over the next few days, and The Pest very much a factor, we watched the black clouds building in the East and the first flurries of hail and snow come down on a squally wind. I looked across at Polly, our next ewe due to lamb, who was the far side of that East Field and saw that she was pawing at the ground. A definite sign of imminent lambing, though I'd not thought she was 'bagging up' that much yet. Still, we made an executive decision to get her indoors - I was mainly thinking of the cold and wet, but the Assistant Shepherd noted that Brer Fox would almost certainly be attracted to all that birth-fluid smell and fresh blood. Foxes will readily steal a new born lamb while it is helpless. I could not bear that.

So she is now in the pen in the Tígín on new straw, with a bucket of water and some grub. She is not totally happy about this but this is one of those times where the humans need to 'play God' and decide what is best for the animals in their charge. Polly's instincts might all be shouting to her to go find a lonely corner of the field and go it alone, but she doesn't know what we know about the Beast and that hungry, frustrated fox who just missed his duck dinner. Lastly, good luck to all our UK friends, who are mainly around the SE which seems to be the place posting the snowiest pictures on Facebook and may be getting The Beastly snow storms in the neck. Stay warm and dry.