Day 336 of 365
We are into a tough time here on the little farmstead. I love spring, but my goodness, it brings some work, and we have some added unusual situations this spring.
We are not sure what to do with Anna Maria. We even considered trying to make her a house duck, but I don’t know if she can do it. Plus, she will forever hear the call of her people from the window and will want to go out there with them. So, we have to keep thinking.
It’s also planting season for Ron, which is always kind of epic. I need to get the berry bushes pruned, and I have to finish pruning the pear trees before it’s too late. It may already be too late. On top of this, I ordered peach trees and more blueberry bushes because I am determined to make an edible landscape around our property, but I don’t even know where they can go. We have a lot of shade from a lot of trees. So I have to study our property and the sunshine and then dig. The soil is so rocky that Ron will have to dig the holes for the trees, but I can probably dig the holes for the blueberry bushes.
We also have rats in the chicken coop still, and they have done some fairly serious damage. Now that the weather is warmer, as soon as we are able to get to it, we have to take down the inner wall, maybe for good, and Ron will have to replace some of the boards on the outside.
Oh, and as I write this blog, I can hear Ron watching a video in the next room. He is learning how to treat trees for brown tail moths because we have those too. Thank you, climate change.
When I write this down, I feel a little panicky about being able to do all of this between work and homeschool, but I assume we will get it done–always later than we had hoped but always done.
In the meantime, I am doing a pretty good job of getting my essays graded for work while I sit in the bathroom floor with Anna Maria. We had a duck in the house before for several months. Her name is Anna Sophia, and she loved the cello. Today, I played Anna Maria some of Anna Sophia’s favorite music, and she really liked it. Ducks seem to like the low cello sounds a lot. In fact, I found a cello YouTube channel and used my laptop as a duck sitter while I was making dinner tonight. The music keeps Anna Maria from quacking and quacking, and female ducks quack very, very loudly.
The cutest thing was that I could see her through the reflection on the screen watching my computer over my shoulder, but when I would turn around, she would turn her head like, “you can’t look at me.”
*Also, I feel it is important to note that we had Anna Sophia for about a year and a half before Anna Maria came into our lives. And Anna Maria’s name was already Anna Maria. We didn’t rename her. I thought you might wonder why in the world we had an Anna Sophia and an Anna Maria.
Farmer-ish 
You do have your work cut out for you Crystal. Farming is lots of labor with great rewards ……hopefully.
Sounds like Anna Maria will be taking up more time than you have to spare…. poor girl, poor you.
Koren’s only rooster died last week. He had been staying hidden in the coop and a couple of hens were always with him until he passed. One hen wouldn’t leave the site after “Mr Rogers” died….. she died the following week…. she’d stopped eating…. failure to thrive….. died of a broken heart. 😢
These sweet creatures have a heart and a soul. ♥️
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Oh my gosh! I am so sorry about Mr. Rogers! I have heard of chickens dying when they lost another chicken they were close to. I have not had it happen in our flock, but I thought we might lose Rooster after the first hawk attack. He was so down for weeks. He barely ate. I thought we might lose him. They are social creatures. It seems so obvious to me now that chickens are caring and have a range in personality types, just like us. But I had no idea. I think most people have no idea. Thank you for sharing that story. It’s a sad but reminds me of how important it is to respect these animals.
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