Ducks!

Yes, we now have ducks. Three drakes, who are busy out in the garden eating slugs. The chickens are out there eating and scratching the winter grass. Saves on adding nitrogen to the garden too!

We are actually planning on having a laying flock of Ancona ducks, but will be starting from ducklings late next month. The Spawn is mightily pleased at the thought of having ducks, I must say. I find them (so far) more entertaining than chickens too. They're amusing to watch as they dabble in the grass and they seem generally less descended-from-carnivorous-dinosaurs than chickens do. I have, on some camera or another, got pictures of the ducks. I may even get them off the camera onto the computer one of these days.

In the meantime, we're probably going to be planting three times as much space this year as last. And getting pigs, who will hopefully help dig up at least one of the other garden areas. As long as we're going to have 'em, we might as well get all the use we can out of 'em

The sheep are probably going to go. None of us much like them and we have a limited amount of usable pasture. We'd much rather have goats, if we're going to do ruminants. The hope with all this, by the way, is to discover what animals we DO want to raise before we buy our own property. What we raise will determine how much land we need in addition to a heap of garden space. Just in case anyone though we had some sort of homesteading ADD going on here.