Today in the duck house, more duckling pictures, by some amazing coincidence. Plus a random bee.
A bee on the edge of the duck house:
Month: June 2020
Aerial photos in June
It’s been a while since I flew my drone over our homestead. I felt an urge to do so today, so did, and took a few pictures. I thought I’d share some.
Let start with a top-down view of our flowerbeds, pond, back lawn, veggie garden, and driveway:
An angled view of the flowerbeds etc from lower down:
Flowerbeds, back lawn, pond:
Flowerbeds:
Back lawn and pond:
The two chicken runs, the veggie garden, and greenhouse:
A closer look at the veggie garden:
And the berry cage:
Finally, a glimpse of Mount Hood:
Ducklings day 21
Today I traumatized the ducklings by mucking out their house, as it was getting a bit ripe. I also made a hacky brick patio next to the duck house.
Firstly, a photo from last night, shortly before closing up the duck house for the night, showing the main vent all the way open, since it was fairly hot yesterday:
This morning’s mess:
To muck out the house, I firstly used a small rake to scrape the straw into a plastic bin (for later transport to the compost); the ducklings all hid in the back nesting box:
Then I removed the shelf liner that was there to give traction in their first week:
And hosed out the floor; I designed the house to be fairly waterproof, with vinyl tiles, caulk, and outdoor paint, since ducks are very messy:
All that done, I added fresh straw, and put the waterer back:
Then I added and filled the pool, and the ducklings quickly emerged; they love swim time:
Hand feeding leafy treats:
The ground next to the duck house is a bit muddy from all the water, so I decided to make a hacky patio out of some spare bricks in a junk pile elsewhere on the homestead. So I collected a bunch of bricks in a cart:
I just laid the bricks on the ground. Eventually we might make a proper patio, or just have gravel:
One more project for sometime, adding gravel to the path to the duck house.
A few moments in the duck house
Just a bit of video of a couple of ducklings paddling in their pool, and others eating and drinking.
Ducklings day 20
Today, just a few photos. It’s a hot day, so we left the pool in the duck house all afternoon, to help them cool off. Technically they’re not ready for that for another couple of weeks, but they’ve been sensible about not staying in the water too long, and it’s easy for them to get out thanks to the sloping tray and ramp, so avoiding getting too hot is more important than a low risk of drowning.
Ducklings day 19
Today I removed the baby duckling feeder, so they now have the full-sized feeder tube and full-sized water dispenser.
Now that the ducklings are big enough to be able to eat from the feeder tube, I was planning on removing the feeder for young ducklings (actually designed for chicks). Early this morning one of the ducklings briefly got their head stuck in the feeder hole, so that was a sign it was time:
The morning pic:
I removed and rinsed out the baby feeder:
Duckling swim time:
The water is cloudy as I dumped the remaining food from that feeder in the water; they might as well eat it from there rather than wasting it:
Afternoon swim time:
You can see a couple of them eating from the feeder tube:
More eating from the tube:
Ducklings day 18
Today I replaced the waterer with the full-sized one, and hand-fed lettuce treats to the ducklings.
The usual morning mess, with the old waterer:
The full-sized waterer. It is heated, to prevent the water from freezing, though that isn’t plugged in currently; I won’t bother connecting that until wintertime. It also has a larger capacity, and deeper cups from which to drink, which is needed now that their bills are growing:
Hand-feeding lettuce treats; they were hesitant, but several were brave enough to approach and grab them:
A funky head shake:
Dunking; you can also see one drinking from the new waterer:
Afternoon peek through a nesting box:
Afternoon swim, with Bert’s supervision:
Bert drinking water draining out of the duck house:
Ducklings day 17
Today was a rainy day, but the ducklings made their own rain inside the duck house by splashing around in the pool.
Hey there:
An animated GIF of the rain on the pond and Bert by the duck house:
A better quality static shot of that (the lettuce on the roof was waiting to be given to the ducklings):
Bert and the ducklings:
Another GIF of Bert and the ducklings chattering at each other, with more rain:
Later, some ducklings under and on top of the EcoGlow:
Afternoon swim during a break in the rain:
Lots of preening:
GIF of spreading tiny wings and preening:
Tiny wings again:
A week outside the cat house in 23 seconds
A summary video of the last week outside our feral cat house.
Cat update for week ending June 20
For this week’s Caturday, all five feral cats spotted, some in-person shots of Poppy and Porcini, and finishing with a GIF summary of the week outside the cat house.
Three cats in the cat house:
Three cats at the cabins:
Did you see the YouTube video summarizing that time?
Screenshot of the cams app, showing five cats — one on the house deck, one in a cabin, two in the house, and one in the feeder:
Long cat is long:
House snuggles:
Three cats:
Porcini in the cabin, Poppy out front:
The same arrangement, but an in-person photo while I refilled the bird feeders:
Paladout:
Poppa and Porcini:
Another in-person shot of Poppy and Porcini, by the small pond, when I went out there to reset a couple of cameras that weren’t responding:
GIF summary of the week outside the cat house:
(I’ll follow up this post with a YouTube edition of that summary.)
Edit to add:
Happy birthday Pansy! The feral cat who lives in the back of our shop, keeping it free of rodents, is 6 years old today (her observed birthday, anyway; having been found on the streets, her actual birthday is unknown):
