Minna goes missing

Less than a month after Sophie went missing, we are now faced with a missing duck. Minna is small, brown, and rather inconspicuous to begin with and when she wants to secret herself away she is remarkably good at staying quiet and going unnoticed even if you happen to be standing right next to her. She does this frequently, actually. I'm not sure if she is hiding from me or trying to stay under the radar of the boys (Fern and Aida) and Gretchen, all of whom I suspect of trying to mate with her although I have only actually seen Gretchen attempting it. At any rate it is not an uncommon occurrence here on the Unfarm for me to wander around the backyard calling Minna's name while she sits in whatever spot she has chosen and waits me out. I suspect she also laughs merrily at my increasingly frantic searches as the ducks seem to have very little sympathy for my nerves.

Usually, the evening routine is that the ducks will get dinner after the chickens go to bed and then they waddle on in to their own coop for the night. This is usually when Minna decides to make her appearance: as soon as she hears the lid to the food bin opening up. The other night, however, she failed to show up so I went in search of her, fearing the worst (as anxiety is my forte.) I searched in all the usual places: under the deck, behind the wheelbarrow and beneath the fronds of the day lily. No Minna. So I widened my search and as I was nearing the gate separating the relatively safe backyard from the hugely unsafe (and therefore off limits to all unsupervised birds) front yard, where any wandering coyote or neighborhood dog could spell disaster, I saw Minna's head poking underneath the gate. It seems she had decided to exile herself from the backyard and was enjoying life in the front yard, sans any birds of the male persuasion. Which was, I may have mentioned, hugely unsafe. Mystery one: where is Minna? Solved. Mystery two: how did she get out? Unsolved. At any rate, she was found relatively quickly and I didn't have to spend a sleepless night worrying about her. 

What I thought was an isolated incident turned out not to be when Minna was discovered missing again the next day. This time, the first place I looked was the front yard as time was of the essence if she was wandering rather slowly through it (she walks with a limp from an old injury and so does not move very fast and is, therefore, one of our most vulnerable animals.) I found her almost immediately, sitting underneath the trailer right outside the gate. How exactly she got there was still anyone's guess because recent tilling and weeding activity in the side garden had exposed several gaps along the bottom of the fence line that were just big enough for an enterprising duck of Minna's size could fit through, not to mention the gap and the bottom of the gate. We blocked off the bottom of the gate with a block of wood and that seems to have stopped Minna's forays into the front yard for now (solving mystery two) but I fear it is only a matter of time before she finds a new escape hatch. She is, after all, highly motivated to keep out of the way of the Gretchen, Fern and Aida; despite explaining numerous times to them that "no means no," they refuse to listen to me.

Newcomers on the Unfarm

We have, recently, welcomed three newcomers to the Unfarm: a starling, a crow, and a squirrel. Admittedly, these are not exotic creatures, but they are wildlife and welcome all the same.

I know that most people do not like starlings, claiming them to be invasive pests, but I do not think it fair to blame the birds for something they have no control over. While there may be a secret headquarters somewhere, where all the starlings gather once or twice a year to sit around some huge table and talk about their plans for world domination, I am skeptical. I simply enjoy the starlings for what they are: birds with yellow beaks and beautiful feathers. The ladies (Penny, Daisy and Sakari) also enjoy the starling's visits because his food of choice is the suet, and he tends to be a messy eater, dropping bits of the suet down to the girls who wait underneath the feeder.

The crow is not new to the neighborhood, just to the Unfarm. We have had crows living somewhere in the vicinity for as long as I can remember, but they tended to stick to the upper branches of the taller trees, or to the sky when mobbing one of the resident red-tailed hawks. To have a crow actually land on the hook in the yard that holds the feeders is something new. He came by a few days ago for a short visit, and then again today when he stayed much longer. He was trying to find a way to get to the squirrel food and made several aborted attempts while moving from branch to hook and back to branch again. The squirrel feeder is easy enough for the squirrels and jays to reach, but I think the crow felt a bit too large to land on the ledge of the feeder. I put some food out on top of the dog run fence and he was eventually able to land close enough to eat it.

And the squirrel. I know that this is a new squirrel because he is tiny. All of our regulars are rather large (or "enormous" if you ask my brother) so this little guy stood out. He didn't brave the feeder in the back where most of the larger squirrels congregate, choosing instead to scavenge for little bits of seed that the birds drop from the feeder in the front yard. He wasn't having much luck, since the juncos tend to pick up anything the chickadees or nuthatches drop, so I put out a small pile just for him and he seemed to enjoy that. Although, with the amount of food we leave out for all the various animals I would not be surprised if he doesn't remain small for long.

Meanwhile, the garden is sprouting a healthy crop of weeds. I would love to get out there and start weeding - it is, honestly, one of my favorite things to do - but I can't. April showers may bring May flowers elsewhere but in the pacific northwest the only thing April showers brings is more showers. This wouldn't be much of a problem if our soil wasn't pure clay. I think it is only a matter of time before potters come knocking at our door with a shovel in hand, ready to scoop up supplies for their next project. Perhaps I exaggerate - it is probably not pure clay. It's probably something like 98% clay, 1% silt and 1% sand.