Lucky-goose Farm

P.s. We are now accepting all advice and expertise regarding septic systems

The baby animals always get the most attention, but they need it! And they are sooooo cute and only stay this way a little while. Did you know geese can live up to 50 years?? We better do everything we can to keep them happy NOW before they are 25-pound monsters ruling the land.

Tim put the excavator to good use and dug a big hole.

 

Ariel brought home some heavy duty tarps and we cut up some ground-cloth we had to make a nice thick, tough pond liner. We turned the hose on and went to make dinner while it filled.



We took the geese down to the pond to test it out but something still wasn't quite right.



Tim headed over to Port Angeles for the weekend and came back with a fountain pump for extra class.



Now the geese and select duck (Punky) have been enjoying nightly swimming lessons!

We carry the geese (and duck) down to the pond to let them swim, then herd them all back up the hill to their house (the well-house) after to warm up and nap. Tilly and Tim are doing well together with the gentle herding.

The little ducks braved a few nips from the geese and all the waterfowl have been integrated. At first I cut holes in our leaky duck pond so the ducks could go in and out of relative safety to get away from the geese, then moved the pool away from the corner to get rid of hiding places, then they made such a mess of their pool I took the whole thing away and forced them to live in one big clean area together. Next weekend they are going outside!

While Tim was away for the weekend, Ariel putzed around working on little projects like calking the "Tophouse" above the well-house, pulling tansy and nettle, and admiring the spring flowers.



Then Cousin Min-Min and Aunt Agnes arrived! (and Min-Min's cousin Henry and uncle Dan)  We went to the beach, went to the swimming pool, played with all the animals on the farm, and played in the herring hammock in the trees. Henry and MinMin were even interested in learning to weave beach grass and did a great job.


Henry's finished weaving projects and MinMin's still-growing seaweed. 

Agnes and I stopped by the Coupeville art show to see my friend Jordan's pottery work and walked around town but couldn't get far with all the people fawning over Tilly and her pooffy hair. We picked up Tim and his newly engaged friends Mike and Holly from the ferry and brought them back for dinner over the grill and campfire.


Cheff Tim

And the goats are terrible trouble and riped up all the egg cartons and got into the chicken coop to eat all the food.... AAGGGHHH!!! Do you know anyone who wants some goats?



The little chickens and their two moms are doing great. I finally freed the moms after weeks of being cooped up in the baby coop and they were ecstatic about their dust baths. I didn't have the heart to lock them back up, so the babies have been learning to come and go from the barn and scratch in the dirt under bushes. The rest of the hens have been hiding their eggs somewhere I haven't found yet unfortunately. I found one stash of eggs but now they aren't laying there or the nests. I'm hoping to find it in time to have eggs for fishing and to collect them all before they start spontaneously incubating from the warm weather we've been having.

Birthday week/end

Thank you so much to all our family for all the support! We couldn't be living in this beautiful dream without so much help. Thank you to Alice for keeping us moving forward towards a house. Thank you to Joy and Rich for signing on to this with us, the excavator that makes everything happen, an awesome farm-resistant camera to document it all with, and so much love, support, and fun. Thank you to Dawn and Judy and Pete for knowing that our dreams come from Home Depot and cheering for us. Thank you to Joe for giving us an all expenses paid vacation in a well-stocked boat for the summer to have the time away to dream and be excited to be home again.

My birthday started with the big orange forest ferry bringing me my very own washer and drier, fresh from Habitat for Humanity. Washing clothes and sheets on the same property where you live is such a luxury! Because the new grass was just starting to grow on our muddy mud pit between the driveway and the well-house, I made Tim go around. The excavator doesn't mind nettles! It was a slightly early present and not strictly birthday related.

On the morning of my birthday, Tim made me ducky egg-breads and I opened presents from my parents one-handed while holding my ducky.

After a wonderful day teaching my wonderful students and going on a surprisingly great field trip (and rocking my special Happy Birthday sunglasses all day), Grandpa took Tim and Amanda and Daniel and me across the ferry to Ivar's for dinner.

Friday morning, the last of our poultry order finally came!!! Punky/Kokanee was very happy to finally have brothers and sisters, which seemed like a pretty good birthday present to her/him too. We had one last early morning snuggle before heading out to pick up the box of baby ducks from the post office. 

My little ducky quickly took to the flock and the geese watched with interest as some miniature waterfowl invaded their pool. 

At school, we had Birthday Science Friday where we ALL wore birthday crowns, ALL traded birthday presents (chocolate), and ALL sang birthday songs until Tim came to join us for the science part and do excellent experiments involving electricity in it's many forms: lemons, helicopters, lights, and even a little fire. 

We stopped by Greenbank Farm for a walk on the way home and Tim tried to snag some baby geese to add to his collection, but in the end decided his joy of more geese was no match to a mothers heartbreak of losing a baby goose - but we did see three families including one very close still sitting on the nest. 

Back on the farm, Andy and Elias came to visit for the last time before moving up this way. They brought me a toilet paper garden!!! Full of soft, thick leaves like lambs ear. The plants are still perking up from a long car ride up but it is in the perfect place next to the outhouse and is beautiful! The base is a moss log Elias sculpted himself and the boxes are made from old cedar fence-boards, left over from what they've been planing down and sanding into wall panels in their tiny house.

They spent one night in the bus, then set up a tent on their new home-site on the back of the property. Tim took his helicopter back there to do some aerial scouting of the area and we showed off all the clearing and leveling we did on Elias' last visit two weeks ago. Andy will have some time this summer while watching our farm to plan out just where to put their house and garden and workshop.

Saturday morning we all got busy cleaning up the property, taking the recycling out, stacking wood, making repairs, and decorating for our potluck party with the rest of the young farmers of Whidbey.

We had deep-fried cod and halibut chunks over the fire, courtesy of Carleton, rhubarb pie from Andy and Elias, chocolate brownie cake from Jordan and Kimberly, cheesy apple hand pies from Morgan and Arjai, fresh watermelon from Kevin, hot dogs and salad from Daniel and Amanda, home-made veggie burgers from a long-lost friend from Sitka Fine Arts Camp who also happens to now be one of they young farmer types of Whidbey (Megan from Talkeetna), an assortment of fermented goodies from Elisabeth who managed to drag her cooler up our hill and join us as we all stared at her wondering if she might give birth at the potluck, with her due date only days away.

Sunday, I put the over-night guests to work moving furniture. We don't have a house, so this was out-door type furniture in the shape of chicken and goat barns. I built the first chicken shed to be strong enough to stand up to goats but possibly movable, then built another much much lighter and realized the first one was impossibly heavy. The only solution I came up with for trying to move it was to throw a party to lour people to my property, then rope as many as possible into shuffling across the property with a giant awkward heavy barn still teaming with frightened chick and angry hens.

Acacia, Carleton, Tim, Andy, Elias, and me. Many hands make heavy but possible work! 

When all the work was done, it was time for more fun in the sun. 

Have you seen the finished well-house? And notice the nice wood-chip path surrounded by green grass? Things are looking better and better around here!

Okay, yeah, I know. I'm not doing great and narrowing down the baby goose and duck pictures here, but remember how many pictures there were of Baby Tilly? Now there are a whole bunch of baby animals on the farm! It's hard to resist... Plus Coxinga (the yellow baby goose) looks super weird swimming underwater. Tim is putting Derringer the smallest goose in the water and I am putting Punky the biggest duckling in the water. They're about the same size.

Tim's geese swimming. And then Tim herding his goslings home to the well-house.

Tim and the goats, Tim and one of the baby snakes we found under an excavator bucket. (Sorry Dawn!)

Baby Ducky, you're the one...

Easter - Andy and Elias came with duck eggs. Some we ate, three we put under a broody hen.

A week and a half ago, Thursday - baby chicks arrive in the mail. Put under other broody hen.

We (Tim) finished wiring the downstairs of the well-house 

late Wednesday night, just in time for the baby geese.

Last Thursday - duck egg broody hen decided chicks were more interesting than eggs and ditched the nest, I stuck them in my shirt (humans are about the right temperature and humidity for hatching eggs) and took them to school with me. We also got Tim's baby geese in the mail.

Clockwise left to right: Derringer, Snubnose, Tula, Ruger, Coxinga

They've grown a lot in a week!

Sunday - candled eggs again. Saw movement and heard peeping in the one with a small hole starting.

Monday 10 am  - pipping holes increased, movement and peeping solid.

5pm - I was at the meeting and she had finally torn the membrane and had a flappy bit that wiggled when she did! Peeping and wiggling.

Never help an egg to hatch! 

...Unless the humidity was too low and it's been stuck in it's shell, 

after pipping, for quite a while (48 hours)

11pm - No further progress and seemed to be losing vigor. Tore back some membrane and shell to see baby whom appeared to be shaking. Was struggling to keep both heat and humidity up. Ordered an emergency c-section for fetal distress, failure to progress, and doctors convenience. (Can't sleep 'till baby's okay!) No veins in shell, extraction went smoothly and baby was moved to a recovery box under the heat lamp in the well-house. 

Starting to dry off under the heat lamp.

She said her name is Punky like Punky Brewster, 

short for Penelope, which could be shortened to Penny. 

It's a versatile name for a little duck.

6am - 2 hour checks all night, baby standing a little. Ate a little, drank a little and pooped! Not out of the woods yet but looking hopeful.

I am told Punky is an Ancona duck, laying 280 green/blue eggs a year.

I hope Punky is a hen. I don't want to eat the baby I worked so hard to keep alive.