Hello, my name is Houdini

We have, amidst our chickens, an escape artist. One of the "littles" (our most recent batch of chickens, as opposed to the "bigs" who have been here longer) has been getting out of the back yard. At first we weren't sure how exactly Savannah was escaping, but we would occasionally find her in the front yard, wandering through the garden or in the neighbors yards, searching for bugs. Each time, we tracked her down and put her back into the relative safety of the back yard. A couple of days ago we finally figured out how she was making a break for it: she was going over the six foot high fence. All this time we assumed she was going under the fence and we dutifully shored up any holes and gaps but she still managed to get out. When we saw her walking along the top of the fence the other day we had our answer. 

Today, while doing a random head count on the sneaking suspicion that Savannah might have gone on walkabout once again, we came up one short: Savannah was indeed missing. Thus ensued a search that grew more serious and frantic when we failed to locate her in one of her usual haunts. We checked the front yard, the side yard, the neighbor's yard and the other neighbor's yard and yet another neighbor's yard. We searched the little forest across the street and the empty water district lot and the backyard once again. No sign of her. It was on our third or fourth search of the closest neighbor's yard that we heard a soft clucking sound and suspected she was nearby but we still hadn't laid eyes on her. As we turned around to give up and look elsewhere I happened to spot her in the corner of the front yard, behind a pile of wood I had stacked against the fence while I made a catio last year. She was nestled in as if she was planning on laying an egg there and after coaxing her out with bird seed we discovered that laying an egg had indeed been on her mind. Today and for the previous two weeks. She was guarding a nest of 15 eggs, making it evident that she had been escaping to the front yard regularly, for the last two weeks at least, to lay her eggs where she was sure to be safe from the prying eyes of other chickens and the thieving humans who feed, water and shelter her, before slipping quietly back into the back yard to join the flock while the humans remained ignorant of her escapades.

We are unsure as to whether or not she was becoming broody or if she simply didn't want other chickens around while she laid her daily egg. In the event that she was going broody we did move her eggs into the little little coop - a small coop that only gets used when a chicken needs to be quarantined or we have baby chicks - to give her a chance to settle on them should she so choose. She did not choose. She promptly hopped out of the coop and ran off to join the other littles to search for treats or bugs. We'll likely leave the eggs there another day or two to see if she changes her mind, but in the meantime we're probably going to have to consult professor YouTube on the proper technique for clipping a chicken's wings. She simply can't be allowed to wander the front yard unsupervised - there are too many dogs, cats, bobcats, coyotes, and cars for it to be considered safe - and despite what she may think, we do know what is best. 

The pile of wood leaning against the side of the house and the fence

The corner where we found Savannah

Savannah's nest of 15 eggs

Oops, we did it again

Well, we did it again. We rolled the dice on a new batch of chicks and we ended up with three little hens... and a rooster. Oy. This one is a barred rock rooster named Lilly. Had he been a she it would have worked out well because then we would have Lucy and Lilly, two barred rock hens. As it stands, Lilly is definitely not a hen - which I began to suspect early on when he grew faster than the other three (Pearl - a black Australorp, and Sally and Savannah - speckled Sussex hens) and his legs were bigger as well. The tell tale pointed feathers and the doubt erasing crowing didn't show up until several weeks later. 

Savannah and Sally

Pearl, hanging out in the top of the Japanese maple tree

So now we have two roosters and two separate flocks: the "bigs" and the "littles." Gretchen rules the bigs, who reside in the bigger coop and spend half the day in their run, and Lilly is the leader of the littles, who sleep in the little coop and spend the whole day roaming freely simply because they are littler than the bigs and haven't integrated into the flock yet. I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled.* We will be making Lilly a crow collar soon, however, so hopefully the crowing will calm down a bit. Gretchen seems relatively resigned to his crow collar: he seems to crow less frequently than Lilly and when he does crow, the volume is somewhat reduced. I have often wondered if the diminished volume of his crow is a source of some embarrassment to him so he just decides to stay quiet most of the time. Lilly, currently without a crow collar, has no such inhibitions. He crows regularly and loudly throughout the morning. He seems to refrain from raising a ruckus as soon as the bigs are let out of their run to free range during the afternoon and evening. Lilly appears to recognize that Gretchen is indeed the supreme ruler of the backyard (even the dogs are scared of him) and is wise enough not to tangle with him or antagonize him in any way, including crowing, which would only serve to alert Gretchen to Lilly's location hidden away in the grape arbor any way. 

In thinking about it now, I realize that we seem to have bad luck with barred rocks. Aside from Lucy, every other barred rock chicken we have had here on the Unfarm has been a rooster. A few years ago, when we allowed Georgia to hatch a batch of eggs after she went broody, we ended up with several barred rock chicks (on account of the fact that Georgia was stealing the other hen's eggs and rolling them into her nest) and every one of them turned out to be roosters. And now Lilly. 

We can only hope that he will be a friendly rooster so that we are not forced to send him away. Dad tolerates Gretchen when Gretchen is confined in the run but will not venture into the backyard when Gretchen is roaming freely, as Dad is adamant that Gretchen will attack him if given the chance. I have always found him to be pretty nice to Mom and I but maybe he just doesn't like men. I don't know if our luck would hold out if we ended up with two "attack roosters."

* Note: Fear not, we actually talk to our neighbors fairly regularly and they don't really seem to mind the chickens. One neighbor actually suggested we get a rooster to accompany our hens, not realizing we already had one at the time.

Lilly, our barred rock rooster

Josephine's big adventure - a short story

I don't know why the cages I have are deemed suitable for mice. All three of my mice can (and do, on a regular basis) get out of their cage by squeezing between the bars of said cage. I have long known about this propensity of my mice to escape the confines of their (cat-proof) housing - hence the placement of their cage on a rolling cart in the center of the room without anything leaning against it or trailing down off of it so as to "strand" the mice on a sort of island in the bunny room from which they cannot escape so that they do not go roaming about the house on their own. This technique has always worked well for me, so long as I do not leave things on top of the cage, apparently. I made this mistake a few weeks ago, leaving a fabric hammock sitting on top of the cage after the mice chewed off all four of the supports that allow it to hang from the ceiling of their cage. I thought nothing of it at the time but came to regret that decision the following morning when I did my customary head count of the residents of the mouse house. 

Coming up one mouse short of the three that are supposed to be in the house, I counted again. And one more time, just to be sure. Unfortunately, repeated counting did not change the fact that one mouse was most assuredly missing. Josephine had somehow gotten out and off of the rolling cart. As the hammock was also off the the cage and now sitting on the floor I can only surmise that Josephine entered the hammock which then fell off the top of the cage onto the floor below, taking Josephine along for the ride. I had not idea how many hours head start she had on me so I began searching for her all over the bunny room: under furniture, in the closet, and behind chairs without success. This was Monday morning. By Thursday evening I had searched the entire upstairs multiple times over, largely ignoring the downstairs as that is a) difficult for her to get to with two flights of stairs between the upper and lower floors, and b) the domain of the cats, where Mynx and Max regularly hang out. Late Thursday evening, however, we noticed that Max was extremely interested in the closet under the stairs, staring at the crack under the door with unusual intensity. Upon opening the closet we found... wait for it.... nothing. I looked on the floor between my art portfolios where Max had been staring and there was no sign of Josephine: no mouse, no mouse poop, no holes chewed in anything. 

I was about the shut the door when I happened to look at the top of my art portfolio and there she was: Josephine - hungry, thirsty, and probably a bit tired but otherwise alive and well. How she made it from the upstairs to down I have no idea. What I wouldn't have given for a tiny little GoPro mounted on her head to see what exactly she had been up to these last four days. Alas, we will probably never know. I had hopes that Josephine would learn a valuable lesson about the safety and comfort afforded her by a life behind bars, so to speak, but it appears she did not. She was out of the cage again just last night. This time, however, I did not leave anything on top of the cage that could fall off. At least one of us learned our lesson.

Josephine, alive and well, against all odds

More departures on the Unfarm

Ready for your daily dose of depression? I have more departures from the Unfarm to announce, unfortunately.  

First to go was Axel. On February 9, a few weeks ago, we made the ever difficult decision to have Axel put to sleep. Prior to February 9, he had been having some trouble with his eye being a bit teary and goopy so we took him to the vet and got him on eye drops and antibiotics with instructions to return in two weeks for a follow up appointment. At our follow up appointment, however, instead of being improved he was pretty much the same and the vet noticed a small lump on the side of his head. We took x-rays and the results were discouraging to say the least: the upper part of his jaw on the left side of his face was simply not there anymore. It turns out that the bone cancer that we thought we were rid of with the amputation of his front right leg had cropped up in his jaw and eaten away at the bone until there was nothing left. With him at risk of a spontaneous fracture of the remaining portion of jaw and his quality of life taking a turn for the worse we spent one more evening with him at home with all the other animals and took him in to see the vet the next day when Mom could be there as well. Before we left for the vet's office I made him a small batch of carob chip cookies and he had those as his last meal. After that we gathered around him, petting him and telling him that we love him as they put him to sleep. We had him cremated, and placed his ashes into a wooden urn with his picture on the front, reserving a small amount of ashes for a tiny pendant urn that I can wear around my neck to keep him close to me, as we have done with Kita, Maia, and Buddy as well.

Axel was loyal to a fault and would follow me everywhere, barking whenever anyone tried to get near me, even if they were family members. He was always smiling and he just kept on pushing through every obstacle that was thrown at him. He will indeed be a tough act to follow. 

Axel, smiling as ever

Our second departure happened just this afternoon. We lost Penny, our Welsummer hen with the spurs, after a long residence here on the Unfarm (for a chicken, at least.) I was unable to find the photos of her batch of chicks, taken when we first brought her here to the Unfarm, but I was able to find evidence of her being here as far back as 2009, placing her at ten years old at least, which is an admirable feat for a chicken, especially one as low down (at the very bottom, to be exact) on the pecking order as she was. I'm not certain what caused her death - whether it was due to natural causes like age or whether the other chickens beat her up - but I found her today out on the pathway in the back, surrounded by a bunch of her feathers and already passed away. 

Why Penny was so far down on the pecking order is also unknown to me. Of course I can speculate all I like: maybe it was because she had spurs, or because she didn't grow up with the other chickens, or because she broke her toe when she was young and always walked with a limp since then. What I do know is that she was a nice chicken and was spoiled as much as a chicken can be - she got her own coop away from all the others, she got uninterrupted meal times and was free range 100% of the time (whereas the others are closed into the run for half of the day before they are let out), she would hang out in the house with me at times and I even made her a harness to take her for walks out in the front yard. 

Penny in her walking harness

So there you have it; a recounting of the recent departures here on the Unfarm. I can only hope that the next post is more lighthearted. Until then, hug your pets, tell them you love them, and appreciate the time you have with them. 

Three cheese vegetable quiche

I've decided to ring in the new year of blogging with another quiche recipe, although this one is a bit lighter (I feel) than the previous one that I did back in - EEK!- August of 2018. Ahh, how time flies when you are busy procrastinating and taking care of 22 animals of assorted varieties. At any rate, this recipe was tested out on Christmas morning when I was forbidden from doing our usual breakfast of sticky buns, welsh pancakes with orange sauce, and baked eggs because we were planning on doing that the day after Christmas so that my sister and her fiance could partake and my mom said "absolutely not" to doing it two days in a row. She's in weight watchers and is, in general, a killjoy when it comes to the creation and consumption of tasty treats. I did modify this recipe a bit as it originally called for mushrooms and I tend to think of them as being very slug-like once cooked and, therefore, inedible. The general consensus was that it was a very good quiche so I am passing along the recipe to you, gentle reader.

Three cheese vegetable quiche

1 Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust, softened to room temperature
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 red onion, diced
1 cup milk (I used both whole milk and 2% and both quiches came out fine)
2 large handfuls (approximately 3-4 cups) fresh spinach, diced
1 teaspoon dried minced shallots (or onion)
3 egg whites, lightly beaten
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper 
1/2 cup Gouda cheese, shredded
1/2 cup smoked Gouda cheese, shredded
3/4 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Roll the pie crust out into a 9-inch glass pie pan and crimp the edges as needed. Prick the crust all over with a fork and bake for 10-12 minutes. Take out and set aside. 

While the pie shell is baking you can work on the filling. In a skillet, heat the vegetable oil and add the red onion and cook over medium high heat until tender, about 4 or 5 minutes. Let cool slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the milk, spinach, minced shallots or onion, egg whites, eggs, salt, and pepper and stir until all the ingredients are well mixed. Stir in the cooled onions, as well as the Gouda and Cheddar cheeses. Pour the whole mixture into the pre-baked pie shell and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the center is puffed up and light golden brown. Let cool and set up for 10 minutes before serving. Serves 6.

Crustless vegetable quiche

The other day, desperate for a change for dinner from our usual rotation of spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, rice and beans, and stir fry, I found this recipe online and adapted it for what we had on hand and to accommodate my intense hatred of mushrooms. (I tend to think that they have the texture of a slug - not that I have ever eaten a slug but I've seen enough of them to get a rough idea of their probable texture.) I got rid of the mushrooms entirely and replaced broccoli for the asparagus originally called for. I also used a slightly smaller zucchini than was stated in the original recipe because, although I am a vegetarian, I tend not to like vegetables. My general opinion on the categorization of fruits and vegetables is this: if it tastes good, it is a fruit; if it tastes bad it's clearly a vegetable. All in all, although this recipe is full of veggies, it wasn't bad. I would even go so far as to call it quite good. And if you dice the vegetables small enough you might even get a picky eater (such as myself) to eat their greens. 

The prep time is about 20 minutes, depending upon how meticulous you are with your dicing, and the cook time is about an hour. Additionally, even though we ate this for dinner I'm sure it would make a good breakfast or brunch dish as well.

8 egg whites
4 whole eggs
1/2 cup skim milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper
16 oz fat free cottage cheese
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese, divided
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 of a yellow onion, diced
1 medium zucchini, diced
2 cups broccoli, diced
1 - 2 tomatoes, diced, seeds removed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and spray a 3 quart casserole dish with cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and eggs until fluffy. Add in the cottage cheese, 3/4 cup shredded cheddar, 3/4 cup shredded monterey jack, milk, flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, oregano, thyme, and pepper. In a large skillet over medium high heat, saute the onion, zucchini, and broccoli with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt for about 5 minutes or until tender. Add the cooked vegetables and the diced tomato to the egg mixture and fold everything together. Pour into the casserole dish and top it with the remaining shredded cheese. Place it in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees then lower the temperature to 350 degrees (leaving the quiche inside the oven) and bake for another 45-55 minutes or until it is set and lightly browned. 

Three [escape artist] mice

We have three new mice here on the Unfarm. Recently my two previous mice, Evangeline and Francine, passed away and the mouse cage sat empty with a vacancy sign out front that must have attracted the attention of three new mice who I have named Hermione, Ingrid, and Josephine. (I have been going through the alphabet with mouse names and have already had an Angela, Bernadette, Caroline, Daphne, Evangeline, Francine and Gemima so H, I, and J were up next.)  In addition, as the mice are small and relatively unobtrusive it no longer really phases my parents when I show up with three new ones. Thus Hermione, Ingrid, and Josephine came to live on the Unfarm with very little fuss involved. I suspect that had I also brought home a hamster in addition to the three mice there would have been a bit more uproar so I wisely refrained. Besides, the mice were most likely going to end up as dinner for some snake so I really am in the business of saving lives here. 

Josephine appears to be the oldest of the three as she is the largest. Hermione and Ingrid are likely much younger and upon settling them into their new home I quickly discovered a problem with this: they are so little that they easily fit through the bars of the mouse cage. I checked up on them a few minutes after getting them settled and found only Hermione and Josephine in the cage; Ingrid was running around the outside of the cage. Fortunately I quickly caught her before she could escape into the rest of the house. Unfortunately, all three of my various mouse cages have bars with the same amount of spacing between them so the only way to fix the problem is to set the cage up high on a rolling cart and hope that the height and lack of anything to use to climb down to the ground will deter them from getting lost should they decide to escape. Well, that and to feed them well and hope that they grow fast and soon are unable to squeeze themselves through the bars any longer.

I am, by nature, a bit paranoid and overly anxious so I do check on the mice and do a head count several times a day to make sure that no one has escaped and up until a few days ago the combination of the height of the cage off the ground and the fact that there is really nothing exciting outside the cage (no castle house, no wheel, no food or water bowls) seemed to keep them safely inside the cage. A few days ago, though, I did my morning head count only to discover that one mouse was missing. But she was nowhere to be found on the outside of the cage or the top of the cart so surely I must have miscounted. Nope. There were definitely only two mice in the cage. Becoming frantic I began looking around the room in frustration as there are probably a million places a small mouse could hide and I had no idea where to start. Before I could go into a full blown panic I noticed some mouse droppings on my tabletop easel on the second shelf of the rolling cart. Further investigation revealed a rather frightened looking Hermione crouched on top of the easel. How she got down there I will probably never know. It's not like there were a bunch of tiny mouse sized sheets all tied together and thrown out of the cage dangling down to the second shelf. I retrieved her and placed her back in the safety of the cage (we have cats, after all, who would probably love to catch one of the mice outside the cage.)

Since her misadventure, none of the mice have ventured outside the cage (at least not to my knowledge). Hermione did pop her head outside the cage bars last night but when I peered at her and said, "where do you think you're going?" she pulled her head back in and went about her mousy business. I am hoping that they soon grow too big to get through the bars, much like Josephine, and I can stop worrying so much about them. Until then I plan to continue my head counts and abundant feeding schedule. 

Josephine

Hermione, the escape artist

Ingrid, our original escape artist

Hero worship

The ducks, Fern and Aida - who turned out to both be boys despite my female names for them - adore Gretchen. And who wouldn't? Gretchen struts around the yard like he owns the place. He has a flock of hens to choose from and he always gets the best and tastiest treats simply because he is the largest. No, there are no pesky gentlemanly characteristics to get in the way - he will push anyone aside to get what he wants, whether they are wife, mistress, or daughter. It is no wonder, then, that the boys look up to him and seek to emulate him whenever possible. This emulation includes attempting to mate with the hens who flap and squawk and run away as fast as possible. (But not always fast enough - they have been caught several times even though you would think a chicken could easily outrun a duck... it probably has something to do with the fact that there are two ducks versus the one hen.) It really doesn't matter how many times you tell them that there are no such things as "duckins," they refuse to listen. Or maybe they simply figure that fair is fair - Gretchen tries to mate with Minna, after all. Apparently he believes in the "duckins are possible" theory as well. 

The ducks are let out first in the morning and Fern and Aida will often forego a large breakfast in favor of running up to the dog run fence to watch as Gretchen then eats his breakfast. The rest of the day the boys spend following Gretchen around the yard as best as possible. The boys are unable to fly up and over the dog run fence so if the chickens happen to be in the dog run (where their coop is located) the ducks are out of luck and have to settle for walking along the fence line staring at Gretchen all the while. If Gretchen does happen to leave the dog run and head out into the yard, the boys can usually be found within several feet of him. They dare not follow too closely as Gretchen tends to turn on them and chase them off but this has done nothing to dampen their hero worship of him. It seems that in their eyes, Gretchen can do no wrong, which is a refreshing change from listening to my dad and my brother complain about "Hooligan" (the name Dad has taken to calling Gretchen) and his dislike of men and certain neighbors which he expresses by attacking them. But as he would likely be butchered if we were to send him anywhere else, re-homing him would probably be a death warrant so for now at least "Hooligan" stays and the ducks will continue to have someone to look up to.

The boys, hanging around outside the dog run fence while Gretchen ignores them from within. Aida is on the left and Fern is the one with more white on his head, on the right.

Gretchen, in the yard, with the boys remaining at a respectful distance.

Hatching chicks on the Unfarm!

Last summer, my dad went on an epic bike ride from Washington state all the way to Maine before flying back home. My brother was temporarily in San Francisco and my sister lives in Colorado. This left my mom and I alone to tend to all the Unfarm chores. This was a huge mistake on my dad's part because that also meant that my mom and I were left alone on the Unfarm with no one to tell us "no" so when Georgia, our partridge Wyandotte hen decided to go broody we said "yes." We let her sit on her eggs - all 15 or so of them by the end - and attempt to hatch them. 

This was our first experience with hatching chicks and we didn't know quite how to go about it so we let Georgia do most of the work with keeping the eggs at the right temperature and humidity and turning them when needed. This worked well enough for the first two chicks. At that point, Georgia decided she was done and hopped off the nest for good. I only found the two chicks - who we named Luna and Sally, Luna because the solar eclipse was the next day and we wanted at least a semi appropriate name considering the occasion - because August 20th I was laying in bed with my window open and I heard rather frantic peeping that didn't sound like any of our local birds so I went out to investigate. I found Georgia in the run with one chick and the other chick was stuck in the coop, peeping her head off, trying (in vain) to call Georgia. Checking the nest box I found the rest of the 13 eggs beginning to cool off. Georgia had apparently decided that she was good with two chicks and the rest could fend for themselves. Having candled the eggs (probably way more often than we needed to or would be advised because we were so excited to see the little chicks developing inside) we knew that the eggs were all full of living chicks so in a panic I ran inside and set up the incubator, which I had purchased from the feed store upon seeing Georgia up and off the nest at one point, thinking that she had abandoned her eggs. (Hens will occasionally leave the nest to grab a bite to eat or go to the bathroom without any ill effects on the eggs. I discovered this after purchasing the incubator.) I carefully transferred all the eggs into the incubator and set it up on the kitchen table where we would be able to keep an eye on it and it would be relatively safe from dogs and cats. 

The incubator on our (rather messy) kitchen table.

The two chicks that had hatched got set up in the bunny room in a brooder pen that we fashioned out of a dog crate and brooder kit with a heat lamp on top. There was one unfortunate incident in all of this: one of the eggs in the nest had cracked open but the shell membrane had started drying out and was shrink wrapping the chick inside, who wasn't moving. Figuring it was a loss, but unsure what to do with it I just stuck it under the heat lamp next to Luna and Sally and waited until Mom came home from church to decide what to do about it. However, upon showing it to Mom we noticed it was starting to move so it was still alive in there but seemed unable to get out of the remainder of it's shell. So we took tweezers and very carefully peeled the membrane and shell off of the tiny chick. Not sure if the chick would make it or not, we named her Lucky in hopes that her name would give her good luck and help her survive. 

Lucky, half in and half out of her shell

Luna and Sally hanging out underneath the heat lamp, before the brooder crate was set up.

Once Lucky had dried out and was relatively mobile we brought Georgia into the house and set her up in the brooder pen with her chicks. She was, as it turns out, a really dedicated mother. She'd let the chicks snuggle up under her feathers to sleep or hop on her back for a ride and she always made a gentle clucking noise when food was provided to show the chicks what was food and made sure that they ate before she did. 

Georgia give a chick a ride in the brooder pen.

The rest of the chicks hatched over the next week or two in the incubator - the reason for the staggering in hatching times was that Georgia only laid a couple of the eggs herself, we believe. The rest of the eggs she rolled into her nest as soon as the other hens laid them, and then sat on them herself, so each chick was a day or two behind the previous chick in terms of development. Once they were all big enough to be outside we set up a small pen for them so Georgia could be with them outdoors but the other hens and Gretchen would not be able to get to the chicks and possibly hurt them.

A chick in the incubator, just after hatching.

Drying off in the incubator. You can see the other eggs still incubating.

One of our few blondies, we think these chicks are the offspring of Bridget, our Rhode Island Red hen.

Georgia, the proud momma, in her outdoor pen with several of her chicks.

By the way, Lucky survived and is doing fine and she is one of the four chicks that we kept. The others were given to a friend who has a farm and was in need of some more chickens. Sadly, all of our barred rock chicks turned out to be roosters. We were planning on keeping some of the barred rocks if they were hens as their mother, Lucy, is so very friendly. How we ended up with one hen that produced only males and all the other hens producing only females is a mystery to us.

Lucky, a beautiful black hen.

Arrivals and departures on the Unfarm, duck edition

I've put it off for almost a year now but I am finally making myself do it. I have to announce the departure of Maggie, one of my favorite ducks. He (named when we thought he was a she) was a beautiful solid white Pekin (you know, like the Aflac duck) that was especially devoted to his mate, Minna. He would bravely defend her from mating attempts by Gretchen and stood up to any hens that decided to chase Minna. He traveled with us to the beach, to our family house on the Puget Sound, and on camping trips where he and Minna were always a big hit with everyone. He lived most of his life (at night) inside the house with Minna and the bunnies in my art studio, locally known as "the bunny room," where he tolerated wearing a diaper quite well and was generally a very loyal, calm, and friendly duck. 

Unfortunately, a short time after moving outside into the duck house, I went out in the morning to let him and Minna out for the day and found that Maggie had passed away sometime in the night. I took his body in to the nearby humane society and had him cremated, and his ashes now sit on one of my bookshelves in my room, along side several other cremated pets. At some point I fear my deceased pets will outnumber my books - and I have a lot of books - but that is the hazard when you live with animals: you are almost guaranteed to outlive them. Sadly. 

At any rate, Maggie's sudden and unexpected departure left Minna alone in the yard and ducks are not designed to be solitary creatures. Also unfortunate was the timing of Maggie's passing. Duckling season was over and procuring new ducks in the middle of July was going to be more troublesome than I would have liked - I usually just get my ducks and chicks from the local feed store about a mile up the road. As it was I had to scour craigslist and got lucky when I found someone in the city who had just hatched a batch of Ancona ducks. 

Fortunately for me, my mom was visiting my sister in Colorado and my dad was on a cross country bicycle trip so it was the perfect opportunity to get two ducklings (as ducklings should always have at least one other duckling with them.) I find it's generally better to ask forgiveness than permission in situations involving the procurement of more pets. This then is how we ended up with Fern and Aida - two beautiful dark brown and white ducks who turned out to both be males. I would have preferred to have ended up with at least one female duck out of the two so that the girls outnumbered the boys but at the very least Minna is no longer the only duck in the yard and could spend her time with the boys if she chooses to (which she does, on occasion) and there are now three ducks to huddle together in the winter time in the duck house at night to keep each other warmer as the duck house lack central heating. 

As beautiful as Fern and Aida are, I don't know as though I would go the route of a private breeder again for acquiring ducks as the boys are much more nervous and flighty than any ducks I have ever gotten from the feed store. I think it may have something to do with how much handling the ducklings got initially, the feed store ducks being exposed to almost constant attention whereas the small breeder ducks didn't receive as much attention in their formative days. That's my theory, anyway.

Maggie and Minna

Aida, with the darker head is on the left and Fern with the lighter head is on the right. They are both quacking their displeasure at my presence in the yard.