Mighty Ducks

Habits, man. I was in the habit of riding my bike to and from work, at least part of the way (I'd do the bike on bus thing pretty regularly to save time, avoid unpleasant weather, or to be lazy). Then I had that fistula surgery at the end of April and my left arm has been a mess of neuropathies ever since. I'm going to try the bike out this afternoon, it may be like the guitar, something that doesn't feel right or good for my left arm but that's doable.

But I have gotten back into the habit of playing guitar every day. Doing both the bike commute and regular, focused guitar practice is tricky, they're both pretty big time vampires. But they're both things I love to do and that I feel better when I stay in the habit.

See also blogging. Obviously, it's been like a month since I posted anything here. Including about my friend Elizabeth's suicide. That'll have to be a whole other post, a lot to process there. A total tragedy.

Anyway, none of that is what I came here to talk about right now. I came to talk about the ducks. Who are getting pretty near maturity. We started with five (well, six, but one died before the brood box was all the way set up).

The five Suedes were then joined by a pair of Pekins someone gave to us.

Then Sheba got one of the Suedes and Corinna butchered that and roasted it. The up side is it got us legal, since the city has a six bird limit. The realities of keeping them in clean water and keeping the coop merely gross also dictate a limit of six. Possibly four.

But after learning that Sheba can't really be trained to not chase ducks (she's part greyhound, and the coursing hound in her just can't help it), Corinna moved a bit of fencing so the dogs can be out at the same time the ducks are in the yard.

And the ducks love the yard. They chase each other, eat and sit on crops in garden beds, sit in the shade of the peach tree. If there's a puddle, they gobble earthworms, if the sprinkler is on they'll play in the spray and gulp water out of the air. They like the yard so much, in fact, they'll line up by the gate to their enclosure and holler until they're allowed through.

I sat out with them for quite a while, particularly trying to capture their play, the chasing, the flapping, the brief flights (they sometimes get off the ground, but not by much or for long).