It was a wonderfully hot day yesterday which I enjoyed so much I ended up with pink arms and pain in the soles of my feet from walking in sand-shoes without socks. But my feet will toughen up and after that long winter and spring I cannot bear to waste a moment of this fine beautiful weather.
In the evening squalls complete with rains and wild winds blew past us like trams stopping at the bus stop to pick up rain-coated passengers. The short storms roared in with much clanging and banging, paused, rained, then slammed their doors shut and roared off again scattering puddles in their wake. The downpours watered in all the 100 lavenders I had planted, all the vegetable seeds and the thunder left Ton cowering in the barn. The man who rents the land that surrounds us from John’s uncle had just finished planting all his soya beans so I am sure he was happy.
We had an unhappy event earlier yesterday. The ducklings had come out to play in their new swimming pool and seeing them I dashed inside to get the camera, in those few moments Boo must have jumped the fence, I was back out literally seconds later and one duckling was dead under the tree with a deeply upset Boo standing over it. He knew he had done a bad thing and simply bolted. I was wild with fury. Losing even a little unnamed baby like that through a moments lack of attention made me so mad. Boo was severely chastised and in the end was grateful to be sent to his chain. So we began with six and now we have two. Ducks are just not meant for this farm.
Poppy the Wanderer was found in the Salad Bar field with the two plonkers. When they saw me they all ran over but luckily Poppy got to the gate first so I could let her out. She is a shape shifter that pig. She still throws herself at my feet offering her belly for a scratch. Sheila is deeply unimpressed by the visitors in the field next door. She stands and stares at them then moving her massive head slowly sideways she stares at them again, sniffing the air for clues then lumbering off. She spends a lot of time sleeping on a hot day.
Daisy is clear again of her mastitis, it definitely seems to be tied to her cycle. When she is in heat she gets sick. It is possible that when we get her pregnant (at the end of next month) that her metabolism may be able to manage it better. I hope so because milking three times a day wears us both out. And milking the bad quarter and then changing buckets and milking the good quarters so we can all drink that milk makes for a long milking session. Yesterday was a breeze in comparison.
And now the hay is almost ready to cut. It is just starting to flower. So today I shall get in touch with the hay man and we will discuss the weather!
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Today will be fresh and clear after that rain and maybe more on the way!
Love your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
43 responses to “Squalls”
Oh no! Boo! 😦
Poppy just wanted to go play with someone her own age 🙂 Could Sheila be jealous? Sad about the duck. Laura
I love the tones of this and the contrasting patterns and textures.. well spotted.
Oh dear – poor duckling and poor Boo. In my experience ducks are very easy to breed – every single egg my parents removed from the duck pen (to go into the incubator) hatched. They lay the best eggs for baking too!
I hope these two last long enough to lay, I was hoping to keep a breeding pair, but it will be sheer luck if i get these two through and if they are male and female. But I do have a friend with a huge duck pond, so it may be that I will get them big enough then release them. c
They might fly away…
I have seriously thought of raising ducks, endangered ducks, so they can fly away, would that be strange? Might they come back here in the spring? that would be pretty cool..there are ducks down in the creek that is really a ditch already.. c
I think they might come back and if they like you enough they might not fly away at all. Ducks do seem to be fairly content with a decent space and small pond to swim in 🙂
C, I have wild teals that have come to visit regularly for the past 3 years……..I do supplement them with a duck food called ACM (all coarse mash) when we are low on wild food (tadpoles and frogs) in the dam.
It is an interesting thought.. I will talk to the american rare duck breed people.. c
The farmy is such a photogenic place miss C , even after all these years of following your blog im still coming across new images. … and of course the stories x
Good morning, c. I’m using the header image from today’s post with all (c) credit and yaddayadda being given to you and the farmy. I’ll keep the credit for the poem though, which is at http://miskmask.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/a-moments-madness/ 🙂
[…] photo from The Kitchens Garden, used with permission. All photo rights remain with C. Gunther. The story behind this poem is at Squalls […]
Short little lives are very sad… But I think the wonderful weather has made it impossible for you to be unhappy very long. There’s lots of life at the Farmy these days. I have just planted my ‘crops’, having laboured for three days to get my raised beds ready. The weather is finally cool enough that my tomatoes, lettuce, beans, zucchini, beets, strawberries, rhubarb and bok choi will not fry in the sun. Now I’d like a gentle shower tonight, please. Have a lovely day, Miss C.
Oh dear Boo.
Have another wonderful sun shiny warm day C.
🙂 Mandy xo
Nanny Boo was my hero. How on earth could such a thing happen? Perhaps the duckling died of fright? I’m glad you’re having such useful weather – not before time after the horrible winter you had. I’m really sorry about the duckies.
We too are having lots of little storms, with the result that the maize planted a couple of weeks ago under plastic is now well up, poking through in lovely straight rows. The rest of the field, for which they didn’t use plastic, is equally green, so I wonder why they bothered! If it keeps on like this we’ll soon be losing our view of the woodland and pasture beyond.
I am fairly sure the ducks saw Boo, ran away, he would have run after one and picked it up, I am fairly sure it did die of fright or he inadvertantly broke its neck, i don’t think he killed it on purpose, when things run from dogs they do chase them, dog-nature i suppose. I just hope he does not do it again. The other thing is that he is usually glued to my ankle so maybe all the splashing about freaked him out a bit too.. c
PS I love the pic of Poppy with a dirty face!
Ah, we are sharing similar weather with heavy rain, then a stall, then another. as if twin clouds were playing tag. It was good rain though.
Bad day for ducks, though.
So happy to hear about the squalls! You will soon have a green wonderland once again!!! We are waiting on our precious Lamancha goats to kid, we think the 2nd week of June. Very exciting! And we hit the lake for the first time on Sunday and it is warm enough to swim! Yeeehaaa! So Dolly (our heeler, who turned into a fatty over this long, brutal winter) and I will be hitting the lake daily! xo
Getting some rain here too. Poppy is priceless. That might be calendar worthy. I’m sure Boo is sorry that he let you down. Poor ducky.
Enjoy your sunshine today.
Sorry to hear about the duckling loss. I must have missed some posts. You don’t know where Poppy’s going to show up next!