A rather duck-heavy post this week.

But also with a cat! The ducks zipped over to investigate a new alien cat at the back of the pond:

I went back there too:

It was a very friendly cat, obviously a pet:

I told it to go home (back north).  I didn’t want to encourage it to hang around.

The ducks again from that vantage:

Earlier this week I slipped in the mud on the path to the duck house, so I added some straw to help give it better traction:

In due course we’ll get around to ordering some gravel for the path. I still haven’t decided if I want to tweak the slope a bit, or just leave it as-is.

Here’s a nice pic of Gill:

Bert and Gert:

The ducks rooting in the grass:

This morning, the pond was mostly frozen, and the ducks were vexed, trying to figure out how to get to the duck house:

The duck house door didn’t open, too; I think it may have frozen shut, since it opened fine once I recalibrated the opener. Hopefully that won’t be an ongoing issue. If it keeps happening, I might have to risk leaving it open overnight, if I can’t figure out a way to prevent it from sticking.

The ducks currently just have a small area of non-frozen water in the deepest part, plus around the fountain:

They hopped out to say hi to me:

A couple of token chicken pictures: