Ducks are back


They first showed up on March 14. I don’t remember them being here earlier. Then they absconded for a week or two, perhaps checking out other venues. Now they seemed to have moved in and made themselves at home. When I first saw them on the 14th, there were two drakes and a hen. All three seemed comfortable with me being in the area. Now it is just a single drake and a hen. They must be the ones that have been coming around for several years because they seem at ease with me, Chris and anyone else I suppose coming into the enclosure. They keep their distance, of course, but act nonchalant. Saturday Chris spent quite a bit of time in the enclosure messing with his bees and that didn’t seem to trouble them. They are helping me control the moss.

Chris has six hives now scattered around the High Plains. He recently moved a couple from the enclosure to the Mariposa hippie commune because the bees were too aggressive for SA. Now he just has one hive of benign bees in the enclosure but they are a busy lot. They seem to be taking full advantage of all the fruit trees blooming around the place. We watched them Saturday evening go about their business on the little cherry trees on the south end, which are in full bloom. Chris has the pieces necessary to make a couple of flow hives so he’ll be adding to his scattered apiary soon.

Hummingbirds start showing up about this time of year and I wanted to be ready for them.  They can travel several hundred mile, say, from South Texas to good ol’ SA and would be weary and hungry.  Dan True wrote in his book on hummingbirds that it seems they prefer feeders that are out in the open.  We’ve hung ours from the eve of the porch outside our kitchen window for several years, but according to True, the birds prefer to see the skies above them since that is the direction many for their predators come at them from.  So I buried a wooden post in the front yard and mounted the feeder on that.  The feeder is over five feet high with clear ground around it and nothing above it so the little beggars ought to be satisfied if True knows what he’s talking about.  The feeder is still where we can watch it from the dinner table, just a little farther away.  Incidentally, I set the post at least 18 inches deep and the ground was very moist all the way down.   Gratifying.

Li’l r is sporting a boot these days.  On a trip with friends to Palo Duro Canyon she suffered a slight injury and has to wear the boot for five or six weeks.  She isn’t supposed to run but that doesn’t stop her from hopping at a pretty good clip on her good leg when walking isn’t fast enough.  Also, it doesn’t keep her from turning cartwheels which she is wont to do maybe not continuously but pretty darned often.