The duck days of August

I finally managed to set up my pool today. Sadly, the Unfarm is not blessed with the in-ground infinity pool my mom and I have been drooling over, and as I would rather have a colonoscopy than wear a swimsuit in front of even one person at the public pools I must content myself with cooling off in our small inflatable pool. Swimming is pretty much out of the question for me. It is another story when it comes to the ducks. The pool that barely fits an adult fully stretched out is an aquatic wonderland for the ducks, and they are well aware of the potential of this giant oasis of wet. When fully filled, it is too high and there is no way for the ducks to get into the pool. Before that, however, for a good hour or so while the pool is filling up with water it is vulnerable to invasion by ducks and they know it. This then necessitates me to stand guard poolside during this time period. And even then, if I am not careful, the ducks will hop in at any opportunity. Despite the fact that the ducks have two year round pools of their own, they know a good deal when they see one.

Maggie peeks over the edge of the pool, checking to see if I'm looking.

"How long is Mom going to sit there?"

Maggie sits on the edge of the pool. This allows him to stay near the pool without actually breaking any rules, and thus avoiding a spray from the hose. Not that getting wet is that serious a punishment for a duck.

Maggie is pushing the limit a bit here, but still not technically in the pool. Ducks have a very good grasp of the rules.

I turned my back for a second and Maggie took advantage of the opportunity. He was in the pool before I could even turn around. Ducks: 1, Mom: 0.

Projects on the Unfarm (an illustrated account)

In an effort to make this a productive summer, I have been working on knocking out a few of our bigger projects that have been sitting around on the to-do list for longer than I care to mention. With that goal in mind I tackled a patio and a barbeque restoration a few weeks ago. I didn't think to take a "before" picture of the area where I installed the patio but let me assure you that it was your standard weed-choked patch of dirt strewn with bits of old fencing from a defunct vegetable garden that never quite got enough sun to thrive. After several days of weeding, tilling, raking, smoothing, and hauling large loads of sand, cement, and bricks in very hot weather I managed to produce a fairly decent patio.

A view of the patio from above. It ended up being somewhat avocado shaped, which I didn't realize until it was finished.

The patio from ground level.

I should mention that my preferred method of patio building is rather informal: I level out an area, set out path liner to create the desired shape, put in sand as the base and smooth it out, then place bricks inside the border. After that I pour dry cement on top of the bricks and use a broom to sweep it into the cracks. Once the cement is in place I set the hose on mist or fine spray and wet the whole patio down until the water pools on top of the cement. Then wait for it to set and voila - (not so) instant patio. The amount of patience you have when it comes to doing the prep work (getting a perfectly level base) and how uniform in size your bricks are will determine how smooth your patio turns out. I am not generally blessed with an abundance of patience, but more than that I like to use recycled materials when possible so my patios tend to turn out less than perfectly smooth. (This is my third patio built in this style.) This doesn't bother me - they still function as intended and I like the rustic look and the fact that the bricks each have their story: some were extras from when the neighbors built their walkway; a few came from the construction of the new local library; and others are over a century old - rescued when a nearby cannery was closed down years ago.

Project number two: a barbeque restoration. This time I did get a "before" photo:

Our grill, before the restoration.

Our grill was in bad shape. We had gotten it years ago second hand from a garage sale. It was old at the time and it is even older now. And years of exposure to weather hadn't helped the situation. In truth, at this point the grill consisted more of rust and holes than it did of metal. This begs the obvious question: why bother? Why not just get a shiny new grill that has a functioning temperature gauge and doesn't have an ash tray so rusted out that an old license plate is the only thing keeping the deck from burning down? Why indeed.

The answer is simple: it is my mom's grill, and it is just like her father's grill, so it reminds her of him. He used to grill fish and corn on the cob out on the covered patio overlooking the lake in the summer at the Lakehouse. When all of us - our family, and my mom's sister and two brothers and their family and my grandparents - gathered at the Lakehouse we would sit down around the huge picnic table that grandpa had made and eat the dinner that grandpa had cooked. Grandpa is gone now and the family is fractured - fighting over money and control - I'm sure Grandpa approves. (That was sarcasm, by the way.) So that is why Mom loves the grill, and that is why the grill stays, no matter what the condition.

Thus began the monumental task of sanding and scrubbing and sanding again. For hours. And then taking apart as much of the grill as I could and finding new parts: screws, trays, planks, grill plates and thermometers. I bought special paint and repainted the grill, inside and out. I bought sheet metal and made a new ash tray, retiring the old license plate. The grill did not come out perfect - I was afraid that if I continued sanding until there was no more rust there would also be no more grill. So I did the best I could and had to settle for less than perfect - a difficult task in and of itself, to know that there was still rust under there and I could do nothing about it. At any rate, the finished product:

The "after" photo. It isn't perfect, but it's better than it was.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

In all fairness, when I started writing this post, it was still Monday. And it would have been posted by Monday if the internet hadn't crashed, sending my post into the black hole where all things lost on the internet end up. So here we go again.

Last week I the blog took a hiatus while I worked on a pincushion for a Mother's day gift, with bee pins that turned out pretty cute (although mine is probably not an unbiased opinion); biked around the town and to work on account of the fact that my car was out of gas; worked on some art; and impaled my leg on a metal garden fence. Not to worry though, the prongs between the gate were large enough to get my calf wedged through, but not small enough to break the skin on both sides. As it was I escaped with a cut on only one side of my leg and L-shaped bruises on both sides, where the fence went on, and where I had to rip it back off again.

At any rate, it is Monday (sort of) and time for another photo from the Unfarm.

Today I managed to catch the ducks sleeping under the lilac tree, in a patch of lily of the valley. Unfortunately, Axel walked past and set off Maggie's protective instincts, causing him to tear out of the flowers and chase Axel off until Maggie determined that Axel was now at a safe enough distance from Minna. Maggie takes his job as Minna's bodyguard very seriously. So the picture I had intended to get - of both ducks sleeping with their beaks tucked under their wings - ended up becoming a photo of Maggie returning to Minna, quacking his "qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua" chatter that he uses to reassure Minna and calm her down. 

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Beauty and Daisy enjoy a break in the rain and take a stroll through the garden. They may look innocent enough but it will only be a matter of time before they are terrorizing small plants or kicking mulch everywhere except for where we intend it to be. A garden with chickens is never without a little chaos.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

The photos above offer definitive proof that Maximus is a true cat: no cat that I have ever lived with could resist sitting in a puzzle box. I must admit that Max is the first cat who has decided to entertain themselves by diving across the table, knocking half of the puzzle onto the floor. The first, also, to eat the pieces. If Maximus seems to be showing up a disproportionately large amount of the time in these photos from the Unfarm it is because he is a kitten, and by definition he can be found doing something amusing approximately 78 percent of the time. The rest of the time he's sleeping. He walked on the stereo in the master bedroom today and turned on "Dancing Queen." After he spent two minutes playing with the curtains he decided he'd had enough of the music and he turned it back off again.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

 

Pip, taking a nap

Pip again, cuddled with a towel and heating pad

This one is Squeak, she was a little bit older than Pip

Squeak, look how tiny she is!

These are a few photos of Pip and Squeak, honorary Unfarmians who were with us for a short while. They were wild baby cottontail rabbits that the neighbor's cat (Chico, the terror of the neighborhood  I've mentioned before) caught somewhere and brought, still alive, to the neighbor's doorstep. They gave the bunnies to me to take care of but they were very little - Pip didn't even have his eyes open yet - and they both passed away last week. It takes very little time for me to fall in love with an animal and both of these two wriggled their way into my heart in a matter of minutes. Squeak lasted several days but even top notch vet care couldn't save her. I am having them cremated together and the urn will be placed in my room next to all my other children. I fear that by the time I am 80 I will have to add another room to my house simply to store all the urns from my pets. At any rate, I hope you enjoy looking at these two cuties as much as I do.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Dos, not to be confused with Una, showing off her mastery of energy conservation. Why bother sitting up to eat when you can lie directly in your food, cutting out all that bothersome bending and reaching? Dos was the only other squirrel who would come when I called and take treats from my hand, and could be recognized by the notch missing from the top of her right ear. Sadly, Dos passed away a couple months ago and I buried her under the beauty berry bush in the front yard. I still miss that little squirrel!

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

The chickens will sneak squirrel food whenever they get the chance, so the sight of them walking along the deck railing is a fairly common one.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

I have decided to try and include more photos from life here on the Unfarm - just quick snapshots of the goings on around here, and this is the first one: 

This is Minni-mama on her nest that she built herself (such a proud momma I am, that my little one is such a skilled nest builder!) I had pruned the nearby rose bush and she picked up all the little branches and carried them to her nest and placed them all around her and her little stash of eggs. She is very devoted to her eggs and will sit on them all day. This seems to please her but it leaves Maggie terribly bored as he maintains guard duty nearby.