I can’t believe it’s Friday already; it’s been quite a week, eh? What is time, anyway?

Since I’ve been posting hourly photos on my personal blog over the last few days, to help distract me and others from election coverage, you may have seen some of these pictures… but there are some new ones, too.

On Halloween I gave the chickens a pumpkin:

This is what a pumpkin looks like after they’re through with it; just the barest of shells:

Some pictures of the ducks on the pond:

This week I let the chickens into the veggie garden (video):

Lots of tomatoes:

Those recently planted lettuces never had a chance:

Digging in the potato planters is fun:

Tasty kale:

A wide shot of the whole veggie garden:

I went to the feed store, as I was out of duck food. The new coop storage area is rather full at present:

More pictures of ducks:

Chickens in the veggie garden again, a few days later; not much left of the green pumpkins:

Buffy jumping for high kale leaves:

Ducks:

The old chicken coop:

And new chicken coop:

The chickens waiting for me:

I discovered a soft egg, just the inner membrane, without a hard shell. Unusual, but happens occasionally:

Ducks on the lawn:

Finally, a GIF edition of the time-lapse video I posted yesterday:

Welcome to the first Flock Friday with all of the ducks together! I have so many duck pictures, there aren’t any chicken ones this time — I’ll make sure to include some next week.

There were 248 pictures this week… so I picked 30 not-previously-published ones to highlight in this post, and included the rest in a big summary GIF at the end, if you’re interested. (Edit: I’ve moved the GIF to a separate post, to avoid loading issues.)

As mentioned in the last daily duckling post yesterday, you can review the duckling posts in chronological order via the tags “ducklings 2020” and “ducklings 2020 again”, if that’s a thing you want to do.

As a brief review, we started the past week with the new ducks still enclosed in the duck house and run:

A week ago I removed the fence, allowing them to join the older ducks in the pond:

Which they did very quickly:

Here’s another shot of their first swim in the pond:

Sassa and the older ducks:

Betty and Sassa, back before she cleaned herself up:

Some ducks by the (currently off) waterfall:

At the edge of the lawn:

The two groups of ducks are becoming more integrated over time, but started out mostly separated:

Betty and the new ducks enjoying leafy treats:

The old position of the food bowl, before I moved it into the duck house:

I added a new island to the pond, and cleaned the fountain; I captured a few pictures while standing in the pond (see the GIF for more, including a couple selfies):

I mucked out the duck house; now that they’re only going in there to eat, I shouldn’t need to do that as often:

The boys:

I discovered that the fake heron that was on the bank went for a swim; someone must have knocked it off. It was supposed to discourage the real heron from visiting the pond, though didn’t really work:

Sven flapping his wings:

Relaxing amongst some grasses:

The boys again:

All the islands occupied:

Betty:

Rooting in the lawn for tasty bugs; unlike chickens, ducks don’t really damage the lawn, just a nice bit of aeration:

In the pond:

Mealworm treats:

One chicken-related thing — ChickenGuard sent me a replacement motor to try to solve the issues I’ve been having with the opener on the new coop. But it arrived with a broken wire! Oops. So I gave up and ordered a new unit. This morning, they said they’ll send a new circuit board as a goodwill gesture, so I’ll have a spare. It’s frustrating when a device doesn’t work, but it is three years old, and I’m generally satisfied with the devices and their customer service. For the convenience of not having to manually open and close the pop doors every day, it’s worth it even if I have to replace them every few years. (And their 3-year warranty is very generous, especially when they send free replacement parts when just outside that period.)

The ducks in the pond, looking towards the hidden path (you can see a peek of the white gazebo; that’s the entrance to the path):

The reverse view, from the hidden path:

All the ducks:

Edit: I’ve moved the GIF to a separate post, as it seemed to cause some loading issues.