Physical Therapy

"The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry."

Tis true, tis true. I did not, in fact, get to harvest my sweet potatoes the other day because the heavens decided to unleash a monsoon to grace the afternoon. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Anyways, sometime Saturday morning one of my ducks managed to injure her leg. I have no idea what she did to herself, but she was limping when I went out there to refill the water in their run. I inspected her leg and discovered no trace of a break or of bumblefoot (it's kinda gross, so be warned), so I suppose she just strained her leg muscles. However, I was already pushing it to get to work on time, and she didn't seem that bad off, so I put her back in the run and left.

When I returned home she was worse. She wouldn't stand up at all but cheeped madly when I approached. I decided to follow my father's advice and quarantine her in a storage bin lined with a towel so that she wouldn't be tempted to run or otherwise damage her already injured leg. I placed food and water in with her, which she ate voraciously; I guess she hadn't been able to stand to eat or drink all day. She seemed to improve over the next few hours, as she began to stand up.

Yesterday morning she was better still, and I was even able to coax her into taking a few timid steps, but she still limped rather heavily. After church I returned home and decided she needed to do a little water aerobics. So I filled the bathtub and placed her in the lukewarm water. She began to swim, clumsily at first, flailing her injured leg around a good bit, but she seemed much better by the end of the half hour session. 

My Bathtub Duck is Cooler Than Yours

I dried her off and returned her to the container that has become the infirmary. She seems to be recovering quite well; I hope that tonight or tomorrow I'll be able to reintegrate her into the bevy.

A New Toy and Good News

Last night my grandparents gave me a belated birthday present: an outdoor exercise pen for dogs (or ducks or rabbits)! This makes a perfect addition for my ladies to expand their habitat. I placed them in the run this morning and covered it with some wire fencing, which I had bought to duck proof my yard, so that they can be protected from hawks and the like. They expressed their joy with many cheep-cheeps; Ole Stripe Eyes even attempted a quack (it sounded more like a squeaky hinge but at least she tried). Here's a pic of them frolicking in the grass:

Happier Ducks make Tastier Eggs!

As I was transferring them into their new play-pen I inspected OSE's nasty ear, and, to my great surprise, it looks almost normal! Her ear is still super gunky and gross, but it definitely looks to be on the mend. No sign of infection in her other ear or in the other ducks so exciting news there! Things are looking up in the meadow.

Tomorrow I plan on ripping up ("harvesting") my absurdly overgrown sweet potatoes and then letting my ladies have at the bugs and dirt and seeds that'll be left behind, so hopefully the trio will leave something of the happiness they bring. 

That was a Dracula reference if you didn't catch it. 

Catch y'all tomorrow.

Morning Exercises and Trouble in Paradise

So I think I'm going to instigate daily free ranges in the morning with my lovely ladies (as I've grown to call them in my mind). Today's workout consisted of foraging for tender greens, mosquito hunting, and pea training. 

What is pea training you ask? 

In order for you to understand, I need to explain the relationship I have with my ladies. They're terrified of me. Plain and simple. So I did some research and discovered that I can tempt my ducklings by holding out a handful of peas for them to come eat.

As you can see, they're eating from of the palm of my hand.

This hilarity continued for half an hour or so, and by then it was time for me to start getting ready for class. I gathered up the duckling that I've started calling Ole Striped Eyes (she's the one eating out of my hand in the above picture) and began to carry her to their kennel home. That was when I noticed that something wasn't quite right with her head: she had some kind of lump in her ear. Yes, ducks have ears.

After fidgeting with it for a few minutes, I decided it did was not a chunk of feed stuck in her ear, but some kind of local swelling. 

(WARNING: Graphic image, viewer discretion is advised.) 

(Not really)

Ruh Roh Raggy...

I rushed to my computer and pulled up the handy dandy google button on the internet machine and started searching for duck ear maladies. After hours of cross examining chicken forums (because duck forums apparently don't exist, or if they do then I cannot find them), I finally happened upon a woman who had a duck with the exact same problems that Ole Striped Eyes has. Turns out it's some kind of ear infection, and the lady treated it by squirting the ear canal down with warm, distilled water and vinegar. I followed suit, and added some tetracycline powder to their water for good measure because the lady said it spread to her other ducks as well, which I cannot be having. 

This now makes it impossible for me to market my ducks as "organic," but honestly, if this helps her get better and keeps the others healthy, I don't even care. 

More updates on OSE's condition to follow.

New Members of the Family

While I was in Peru, I started mulling over the idea of buying chickens to raise in my backyard so I could have fresh eggs and free fertilizer. The last two weeks I was there, however, I slept in a room that was situated near a henhouse. This quickly ruined any romanticized notions about chicken farming that I had. Chickens are so stinking loud. Oh my goodness. But, like any good one, the idea of having fresh eggs just wouldn't leave my head. Here comes the epiphany: ducks. 
Ducks quack, sure, but not as loudly or as frequently as hens clucking. They also don't produce proper poops for fertilizer, but its a fair tradeoff for not being woken up at 5 a.m. by chickens screaming. So I did some research and decided I wanted to get ducklings of a breed called ancona (yes, like the chicken breed). This particular breed lays between 200 and 280 eggs a year, which is approximately one a day; they stop laying during the coldest part of the winter and the hottest part of the summer. These ducks seemed the perfect choice for two other reasons: they're a relatively low noise level bird, and are naturally flightless (this means no nasty wing clipping procedures). I found a man on craigslist who was selling ancona ducklings out of Baton Rouge. A week later I hopped in the trusty Elephant and drove down to Le Red Stick and picked up these little cuties.

Like "this little pig", they went "cheep cheep cheep," all the way home.

Subsisting on a diet of chick starter crumbles, supplemented with brewer's yeast to prevent niacin deficiency, they lived happily in a dog kennel turned brooder for two weeks. And grew. And grew. And grew. And grew. They doubled in size in about a week and a half.

Got my ducks in a row

Yesterday I worried that they had begun to outgrow their brooder, so I released them into the supervised wild (my backyard). Equipped with a larger water dispenser, they set to work demolishing the bugs and seeds that inhabit my yard. I'm supremely excited to watch these fine ladies grow and start laying this winter!

An Unexpected Guest

As I cleaned my kitchen after my two month sabbatical from the states, I discovered something slightly gross: I had left an unused ginger root sitting in a bag on my counter all summer. I picked it up gingerly (pun intended) and planned to drop it into the garbage, but then I noticed that a small green shoot was growing out of the root. Further inspection revealed that a little root system had sprouted off the side of the tuber. I broke off the large piece of root and threw that away as planned, but then I went outside and planted this little hero in my herb garden

Three weeks later it has grown some wee leaves another shoot. Isn't it beautiful?

Late Summer Problems in the Garden

Against all odds, my little garden survived my two month absence.
......
I think that's doing the plants a disservice, let me amend: without my meddling hand, the plants were able to do just as God intended, which is to say grow and thrive. As I examined the plants the day I returned from Peru, I noticed that I had committed several grave errors. The first (and worst of by far) was planting too many sweet potatoes in a small space. As you can see, (insert eccentric drawl here) they're takin' over! 

I'll have to start wearing a tin foil hat.

The second of my problems is visible in this picture as well: I failed to prune my indeterminate tomatoes, so they have now grown far too tall and have slumped. Two of them have died, but I suppose that's alright because the other two are now using their fallen comrades' corpses for support, an idea worthy of Hemingway. 

I digress.

Anyways, the last, and certainly least, of my problems is that I did nothing about the runners from my strawberry plant and now have approximately 10,000 (adjusted for exaggeration) extra budding plants. I'm currently working on salvaging these lil babies in recycled flower pots and giving them to friends and family. Hopefully now that I'm going to be around more and have a better idea of how to garden efficiently, I'll be able to guard my plants more carefully.

Getting Started (a Recap of Early Summer)

Back in May of this year, I was at the farmers market buying strawberries and fresh tomatoes, and I ran into one of my chemistry professors. We chatted for a while and went our separate ways. As it turns out, we live in the same neighborhood and I ended up following him for a good way home; as we sat at a stop sign, he rolled down the window of his Toyota and gestured for me to pull of next to him.

"Want to come have breakfast?" he asked.

I responded, rather emphatically, "Heck yea!"

We arrived at his house two minutes later, and I was floored by how he had transformed his Belhaven home's yard into a magical wonderland of plants. I conveyed this amazement in both attitude and words, and he told me to follow him around to the back of the house. Here he kept his tropical plants and, a few yards further on, his chickens. That morning I feasted on fresh eggs and strawberries, along with some German style bread and cheese.

So, naturally, the next saturday, I returned to the farmers market and bought what all gardeners start off with: tomato plants. The woman in the stall next door was selling strawberry plants, so I decided to buy one as well. Here I've the makings of a fine garden, I thought to myself. I proceeded to Lowe's and purchased some pepper plants, eggplants, sweet potatoes (oh what a terrible decision!) and some marigolds to protect my plants from creepy crawlies. Later that week I hooked a tow strap to the ball-hitch of my Honda Element and uprooted the holly shrubs that had, until that moment, dominated the front of my home. That same day I planted my tomatoes, potatoes of the sweet variety, eggplants, and peppers. I also bought a hanging citronella plant (I've got a terrible mosquito problem), and my mother insisted I buy some pretty purple flowers.

I then got it in my head that I needed some kind of fruit tree, so I loaded up in the Elephant and hauled over to the local garden store. I browsed the arbol department and became sorely disappointed when I realized that they were sold out of peach trees. But never fear, the impulse buyer will buy anything when the mood strikes!! An exotic sounding tree caught my attention: the Japanese Persimmon. A quick Google search revealed that the Japanese Persimmon tree bears delicious and large fruit that, when immature, can be used to treat various infirmities. Boomtown. I purchased this tree at a discounted price, and the staff loaded it up for the trip to its new home.

And just like that I was hooked on everything that is gardening. One problem though: I was due to travel to Peru in June and stay there until August. With help from friends and family, my garden was able to limp along until I returned like the prodigal son.