Poultry Parade

Hey Everyone,
Well, it's late at night, the whole world seems to be sleeping, and whilst I sit here in my armchair in my bedroom, with my warm cup of tea, listening to the rain softly coming down; knowing that it is watering in the Bearded Iris that I divided yesterday, and soaking the mulch that I laid earlier this week, and this afternoon, my mine has turned to our 7 glorious ducks.

We have always had ducks, namely Mammoth Muscovies.  The main one that we all think about was a lovely duck by the name of Ernie, and she died at the ripe ol' age of 14, and it was devastating.  She was a lovely duck whom we all loved dearly, and who had, on several occasions, been caught red-handed, rolling eggs across from the hens nest, across the chook pen, and into her nest in there corner, to then hatch out chickens 3 weeks later.  She was a lovely mother, but it was a bit scary when she tried to teach the chickens how to swim, LOL.

Anyways, now out of the Muscovies we only have a Drake, left, that my uncle gave to me a couple of years ago, because these two ducklings appeared in his backyard so he kept them while they were cute, and then when they reached the ugly stage he gave them to me :D, however sadly one night both Ernie and the other duck that came in the pair dissapeared, not a feather, or sign was left.

A couple of weeks back, it came to the surface that my mother was absolutely dotty about Indian Runner Ducks because they quacked with every step.  So in a few weeks, she had managed to convince herself to buy some, and then within a day or two she'd convince herself otherwise, and mum did this on several occasions.  So with a little bit of help from me, mum decided once and for all that yes, she would get some.  However, the only place we could find some half decent ones was way out Whoop-Whoop... I've just realised that, "way out Whoop-Whoop", as well as "beyond the black stump", and "out the back of Bourke" are all Aussie slang, so many of the overseas readers would highly likely not have a CLUE as to what I was talking about, so I guess it's at this point that I inform you that they're just Aussie slang for something that is AAAAAAGES AWAY, kind of like saying it's as far away as Timbuktu...  Aaaaanyways...

So one day after school, mum and dad picked me up, I hopped in the drivers seat and off we went, on a 3 hour drive to pick up some ducks.  When we got there... finaly... the man had a lovely garden, and it turned out that he'd been a teacher at the Agricultural college, and had taught horticulture and a bit about animal husbandry, which was pretty cool in my opinion.  Well, we were there to pick up 4 Indian Runner Ducks, but when he mentioned that he had a pair of another breed for sale as well, my ears instantly pricked up... and I fell madly in love, so after a bit of subtle coaxing, which mum saw coming from a mile off, we ended up getting the 4 Indian Runner Ducks, and a Pair of Buff Orpington Ducks, which I'm hoping to breed.

The scary thing was, the area had recieved a lot of rain in the recent weeks, and as such the pen had been turned to dirty, disgusting, poop-filled mud.  And Indian Runners are white, and Buff Orpingtons are gold/brown, as you can see in the photos, but they were so muddy that you couldn't tell the difference between the two breeds.  So after a bit of confusion, we got the correct number of the correct breeds, stuck them in some boxes and loaded them into the back of the car.... well, then the real adventure started...

The PONG coming from the back was HORRENDOUS!  We had all the windows down, and the smell was still strong enough to turn the stomachs of dad and I in the front, so I don't know how on earth mum survived in the back... after an hour or so she fell asleep, but now I'm wondering if she just passed out.  LOL

But when we did manage to survive the stinky 3 hour trip home, we unloaded the ducks, gave them a tub of water so they could have a bath, and boy oh boy did they come up a treat.  The stink dissapeared and we could appreciate them in all their glory.

Well, it's now midnight here, the rain is still slowly coming down, and I'm dozing off peacefully to the thoughts of the ducks, and the sound and smell of rain, so I think I'd best leave it there and get off to bed.

I tried looking for a photo of our muscovy drake, but after going through 13,465 photos, and not finding a photo I decided to give up, and I'll take a photo tomorrow.

So for now,
Happy Gardening, sweet dreams, and may you never pass out from the stench of a dirty duck ;),
Michael

p.s. we're trying to think of names for them all, so far we have Jemima and Ferdinand for two of the Indian Runners, but we're as of yet to think of satisfactory names for the others, so I'd love to hear any ideas