Very Sad

One of the boy ducks has gone.
I suppose in my heart of hearts I knew it was only a matter of time. They have taken to wandering all over the place, out of our farm, down the road, over to the neighbours, you name it they go. For a while we tried shutting the farm gate, but it made no difference as they went into the stream and swam out that way!
 So I was kind of resigned to the fact that one day one or all weren't going to be there for breakfast in the morning. He's been gone for 3 days now. I think he's definitely not coming home.

Keep off the Furniture!

The ducks were wandering around the deck, as is their usual thing to do at any time of the day. This wee girl though it would be nice and comfortable to settle herself down on one of the beanbags.

I know this is definitely the first time I've seen a duck on a beanbag!

Oh and it's officially the first day of Autumn today. It was a balmy 27 degrees.

chicks and ducks and rock and roll...

The chicks are almost 5 weeks old now, so a couple of days ago I let one lot out of their little house so that they and their mum could roam around freely during the day. All went really well until roosting time when I assumed Buttercup would take them back to their wee house to sleep. (My usual broody, Maude, has always done this in years gone by) but just goes to show, where chickens are concerned you should never assume anything, as Buttercup flew up into the tree where all my chickens roost at night, and left her 2 wee chicks crying on the ground. I waited to see if she was going to jump down to them but nope. So lloyd and I rescued the wee ones and put them back into their house then got Buttercup down and put her back in with them. All was well.

After this we made the decision that the chicks were all big enough and feathered enough that they could all be put together in one house and we'd let Millicent and Buttercup out to be with all the others. Both of them are looking rather tired after raising chicks for weeks one end.

I'll leave the chicks together in this house for a couple of weeks so that they form a strong wee group, then I'll put the house back into the main run and let them out during the day and hope they all go back together to sleep at night until they are big enough to fly into the tree. ( or better still the lovely chicken house I have that none of them use!)

All in all the moves went smoothly. Now it's just the ducks who are interested in getting in with the chicks!

Ducks resting

It's much cooler today and in fact it rained yesterday which was lovely, actually.

The ducks are making the most of the cooler weather and have ventured out of the river and are lazing around under the palm tree.

Got to love those ducks!

Still no sign of Fred doing anything. I did, however, spot a monarch butterfly laying eggs on my new small swan plants on the deck - yippee!

Must plant them (carefully) in a large planter later this afternoon. 

out and about

Still very hot for Northland. Our sort of usual summer temperatures are around the 23-27 degrees C mark but this summer has been much hotter, up around 30C for days, add to this intense humidity and it feels incredibly hot. A bit too hot for gardening, but with the heavy rain of Cyclone Wilma everything is growing so fast that I have to get out there and weed otherwise I'll have a garden full of triffids! 

I am so pleased with the tomatoes this year. I reckon that weight for weight we'll have around the same as last year, only this year because of the size of them and the types I've grown it's taking about quarter of the time to pick them.

And you can't have tomatoes without basil. I grew all our basil from seed this year and they were slow to start, but wow they are gigantic plants now with lovely huge leaves and a gorgeous taste. Will definitely do this again next year.

The broad beans have grown really quickly - in their neat regimented rows! These do well over late summer into autumn, I actually grew them over winter last year and got a great crop. We love broad beans!

My one and only cucumber! Not a success at all. I've tried for the last 4 years to grow cucumbers, different varieties and everything and each year they've been absolutely rubbish. This was their last chance. Next year I'll give them a miss.

Now for a different area of the garden ~ The Freds. There are new ones! Finally. These are teeny tiny and if you look at the left bottom corner of the photo you can see an egg. I know why there haven't been many appearing, even though I've watched the butterflies lay eggs  - the paper wasps are using them to feed their young, supposedly once the feeding time is over they'll stop and the caterpillars should thrive. 

I'm still concerned for Fred the Original, though. The chrysalis is nice and solid but is  really dark and he hasn't hatched yet. I'm still thinking it's diseased and won't hatch, but the red wings are visible through it so I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed.

Oh and the ducks are so amusing right now! We have a lot of windfall apples and plums after the storm last weekend and they love them! It smells rather alcoholy in the orchard so it wouldn't surprise me if they were a wee bit drunk! Plums are their favourite, they chase eachother around if one of them has a nice bit of plum! It's hysterical as they eat the whole thing, seed and all then spit the seed out! There are plum seeds all over the place just now.

...and finally!

Baby chicks.

They were having their first ever dust bath today - well first one I've noticed them having and they were absolutely filthy! This is the wee boy one who is now gigantic! Shame they're not all this big because I would let them out into the big run if they were, but the others are still awfully little. You can really tell he's a light sussex now - see the black feathers coming in round his neck. I think/hope the other LS is a girl.

This is one of the wee araucanas. Totally looking like a dinosaur. Supposedly they're very difficult to tell what sex they are so I really haven't got much of a clue. But I think one of them might be a boy as well, not sure about the rest of them.

 Looking rather ostrich like here, I reckon.

I'm linking up with Amy at Farm Friend Friday at Verde farm. Go and check out the other's.

The baby chicks are here.

I promise not to bore everyone rigid with millions of photographs of tiny chicks, but all five of Millicent's eggs hatched. One of the three under Buttercup has hatched (so far)and by tomorrow perhaps the last 2 will have hatched. Here's hoping, but if they haven't  it's still an incredibly good hatch rate.

There are four araucanas, 1 light sussex and one throwback silver laced wyandotte which Charlotte told me is most likely a boy as the other times this has happened they've been male so Emily will have to be Emile!

They've all eaten and had a drink of water and all seem healthy.

The most I managed to get in one photo was three, but there are five in this house. Two of the wee araucanas were hiding under mum. They kept peeping out then disappearing really quickly.

After just gazing at baby chicks for ages I went to play with the ducks. We've got a stream and in this heat they spend a lot of the day in it, but we have a new thing we do in the evening. It's called "hose the duck"

They come up every evening for this! I hold the hose up in the air and they stand under it for a few minutes having a lovely shower, some of them wash themselves, some have a wee drink and some just stand completely still. It's really funny!

We had a lovely day today. It was Lloyd's mum/Penny's birthday, so in the morning we went to the Kaikohe A&P show which was really good. By pure coincidence we got to see one of our alpacas - Popcorn, as he was there with his mum, for the day! After the show we went to Mangonui for Fish and Chips. Yum!

Ducks, ducks and more ducks!

Remember the baby ducks, well they're not so little any more!

In this photo, in the group on the right of big ducks, three of these are babies! Not that you can tell the difference anymore!

In this photo, the group of five on the left is the last group of babies and they're just 4 weeks old!

There is one other group of mum and 7 babies, they were wandering around the garden loving the rain.

And on that note, you can see the rain came, especially to welcome Lloyd's mum and dad.

Babies...animal and vegetable!

The final lot of duckings appeared at the house this morning with their mum. She knew to take them here for food - good mum. Then much to her disgust Lloyd and I caught all the babies and after a bit of exercise ( running around the garden like numpties) we got mum and they were reunited in the chicken house. You could argue that as I let my ducks free range I could just leave them for nature to take her course ~ I wish I could, but I can't. I would be out there every second counting babies and breaking my heart each time there was one less ( and there would be as there are hawks and evil pukekos around) This way I can relax. And mum duck probably forgives me, eventually.

She has 8. So out of the four lots of ducklings there have been three eights and a five. The original 2 that I kept, hoping they were girls... well I am now sure I got that one wrong! They look very manly. I kept one other from the next batch - I have no idea what it is but it looks girly for now. Lloyd and I may keep the rest and perhaps even make a meal of the boys... oh! My! It remains to be seen if I can actually go through with this. 

She's saying "get away from my babies, you huge human, you!"

The other babies are the veggie babies!

This is a brandywine tomato flower. These are an old heritage tomato and regularly win "best tasting tomato". I've not grown them before, and have never seen a big flower like this on a tomato. They are a huge ugly beefie.

Courgette flower. I picked the first green courgette, only one, and a couple of small yellow ones this morning. The yellow ones ( Goldrush) seem to be much slower growing than the green one.

And last but by no means least ( I am really excited about these!) There are gem squashes on the plants. They are really teeny, and some little bug has taken a small nibble out of the first one, but obviously didn't like it very much so thankfully stopped! I planted three of these and they have suddenly sprung into life. There were a lot of male flowers, but finally, some squashes have appeared.

NIWA gave their long range forecast yesterday. Supposedly Northland is going to have a tropical summer - very hot, very humid and lengthy periods of time between rain but when it comes it will be of the tropical sort - like a months rain in a day. Anyone know how to protect veggies from this sort of rain?

The girls

So, this is what all the fuss has been about ~ these wee girls. 

Well, at least I think they're girls!

Aren't they pretty.

and my other girls! 

from front left...Sparrow, Abagail, Mathilda, Mabel, Maude, Geraldine, Gertrude, Kathleen, Millicent, Elizabeth and Buttercup. My lovely ladies.

yeh!

The ducks are home!

Bad day/Good day

Yesterday was not the best day. I fed all the animals in the morning, mum and I went out for about an hour and when we came home the young ducklings - the 2 I kept -  were nowhere to be seen. They are 4 weeks old and really pretty large and were out free ranging with their mum. She was here but there was nothing to be seen of the ducklings, not even a feather. Most people reckon it was a hawk and I suppose that's probably all it could have been, but I have never seen a hawk over the house part of the farm and would it have got 2 at the same time? Anyway I fear they are gone and it's really sad.

Then the next disaster. Joseph, our ancient donkey is now blind in one eye and when I was leaving to pick mum up from the hairdresser I noticed that he was standing on the wrong side of the electric fence leaning on it, getting a shock every second. He would have been like this for at least an hour and I don't know what even made me look backwards when I was leaving. I ran to his paddock hoping to lead him out, but when I touched him I got a shock from his bridle. I ran as fast as I could back to the woolshed and turned off the electric fence then ran back to him. He was just standing there, sweating. Then he laid down. I patted him and gave him some water. Zoomed to get mum then came straight back to him. He was still just lying down on top of the, now not electric, wire. This could not have been very comfy so I thought Ah stuff it, I'm cutting this wire than at least he'll be comfy. So I cut the fence and he stood up. Still looking very dazed. We checked on him lots but he was sort of the same for the evening. This morning we got up thinking we'll have to phone the vet, however he has perked up and seems back to normal ( normal is a very, very old donkey) We are having a think over the weekend about what we're going to do, but it's a quality of life thing, really isn't it. I fear we are going to be making a very hard decision soon.

So all in all yesterday could have been better.

Today dawned clear and hot. It's the day of the A&P show which I love. We got there for about 9am and wandered around. I love the 'petting tent' I'm sure it's really for children, but its filled with baby animals of all sorts. It's lovely.

 By the time we left the grass in the front of this photo was filled with cars, we've never seen it so busy, and wasn't the weather good to us.

My favorite were the baby alpacas. Too much cuteness.

We spent the morning there then came back home, checked on the dogs and Jojo then went out for lunch to somewhere rather special. Kauri Cliffs. We thought it would be a lovely surprise for mum. It was an amazing lunch.

It's a stunning place.

We had a tasting menu which was totally lovely.

Lloyd and mum had rather a lot of wine :)

We had such a good time, which made up for yesterday a bit.

 this is all that was left of the salad!

Home again now. Sun is still shining, Lloyd has had to go for a lie down and mum is collapsed on a bean bag outside reading a good book.

I think I'll join her.

Ok it's official!

I have found a home for all my boy ducks! No more ducklings! I've still got to go through this twice more!

Second  lot of ducklings born yesterday. Mum was excellent and was trying to take them right up the paddock to here where she knows the food is, even though I had put food and water down at the nest!  She was so much better than the first mum ( who left her babies in the middle of a paddock!)  as she walked slowly making sure they were all next to her.  I could see a pukeko in the paddock and I know they kill baby chicks, so I caught mum and all 8 babies ~ yes that would have been a funny sight if anyone had been looking ~  and have ensconced them safely in the new chicken house. It was worth the sand fly bites and the grazes from falling over a tree.

  Poor Geraldine and Gertrude have lost their home for the time being, but just until tomorrow afternoon when the grown up ducklings are heading to their new home ( along with the big boys) I'm keeping a couple of girls...then I'll put this next batch in the broody house and Geraldine and Gertrude can have their home back. They're free ranging anyway so hopefully they will go to sleep with the others tonight.

Mummy duck is rather traumatised by the whole thing and has taken her babies up to the top floor of the house and they're all curled up in a nesting box.

It's worth it as I know they are safe there, away from and wee evil things that like eating babies.

Busy morning already.

I got up nice and early and headed down to get the Acorn all finished for mum coming, just had a big clean to do. Walking down our garden towards it I noticed that wee Lachie wasn't in his paddock with Candy, but in the garden! Oh oh. 

He's such a biddable wee chap that he followed me right down the drive, waited for me to open 2 lots of gates, trotted after me through another paddock and back to mum. I decided that I might as well let Aoife and Ruairidh back in now that Lachie is bigger and they all greeted eachother like long lost friends. Candy was licking Aoife and they're all being nice to Lachie. It's lovely to have all the Highlands back together.

So after that I started off to the Acorn again only to be stopped by all the boy ducks faffing around beside the bonfire! MMMmm I thought, perhaps the baby ducklings have hatched - they have! I think there are 8 or 9 but again it's difficult to tell. I could see about 6 unhatched eggs in the nest so she must have been sitting on a huge pile of them!

I headed back to the house and got them some food and water so she doesn't have to venture too far for a couple of days, then finally got to work on the Acorn!

It's looking lovely, even if I do say so myself.

Ah butter wouldn't melt!

Right off to get some tomato food and veggie stuff.

We have water

Irrigation system is all up and running. Setting up the hoses is ok fun, but adding in the sprinkler bits is real fun, and switching it on for the first time and seeing it working is totally brilliant.

The tomato beds ~ of which there are 2 ~ (slight over kill again this year, but you can never have too  many tomatoes) have a dripper system so they get watered at ground level. The rest of the beds have a spray system. We had it on last night and it works a treat. There are also taps within the system so we can turn off certain beds if we want - like the garlic towards the end of the season. 

And no problem with rotating crops as we can very simply change what goes where.

Job well done. Only negatives ~ sore legs from all the bending and a sunburned back.

 So, dripper feed to tomatoes

 Spray feed to other beds

 Veggie garden ~ everything looks very tiny, but give it a couple of months and this will be all lovely and green

Just thought I'd show the veggie garden when we moved in...
(similar angle to first pic) I had such a freak out when I saw it, it took me almost a month to get up the courage to set foot in it,

my early lettuces coming on a treat.

and a wee duck update, see how much they've grown? I have a third broody now, but thankfully she's made her nest in the bananas, nice and safe and very near the house, unlike the numpties in the bonfire. ( you can't see them all ,but there are still 8)

later on....
water working