Summer has arrived @ Flowing River Farm. The sounds of the duck hierarchy echo in the early morning mist. It's a seemingly endless sound of well, drake ducks pounding each other with their bills as they are vying for the affections of the hen ducks. It causes us to pause and stare @ ducks who now have turned hostile to the same pen mates they endured Winter with. The hens have not a chance to even have breakfast @ the watermelon rinds splattered on the compost pile.
Somehow the hens find places of solitude to deposit their fertilized eggs. One chosen location is the exterior of the horse pen. Quackers faithfully deposits her treasured eggs in a nest lined with grass clippings and has towering burn nettles protecting her from being spotted, she believes. So Quackers sits in the driving rain, in the intense heat and then decides after 7 days -that should be sufficient time and wanders back to the flock.
Mrs Goose decides it has become her task to sit on the abandoned eggs with her gosling perched on her back and her husband and Geezer plopped next to her. It's an emphatic honking and quacking that is accompanied by a well meaning hiss- hiss from the male goose. Wings flapping and neck arched @ anything that they deem is within their territory. The 0 turn lawn mower and the farm van evoke thoughts of fury from all the geese. They charge @ the offenders with bravery unequaled and I remind them with amusement that I saved their life last Winter.
Next written Blog post will unveil the Joy Journey of the Geese last Winter and how they ended up @ Flowing River Farm.
