Please Play With Irving...Somebody...Anybody!

Irving the cat has been a playing maniac lately. This morning my husband tried to use the wand toy to play with him, but Irving didn't seem to understand how to play with it, so my husband dropped it and went to get his coffee. A minute later, we heard the sound of the wand toy being dragged through the house after him, then Irving appeared with the toy in his mouth...and Halley stalking him. She wants to play but doesn't quite know how to do it.

Irving dragged the toy to my husband, dropped it, and waited expectantly. Poor Irv...it's coffee time, and no sane being gets in the way of human coffee time.

Later, Irv.

The Mergansers Visit

We woke up this morning to find that a male hooded Merganser duck and two females were visiting the pond. They're beautiful birds. You're probably expecting to see pictures of them, but you're not going to. Why? Because I went down to take pictures of them, and succeeded in chasing them away without getting a single good picture.

So you're going to see landscape pictures instead. I love how different the scenery looks when the light changes. It's overcast today, so everything is muted.


I really like that rust color that the dog fennel turns in the winter. That's the feathery plant around the pond. Someone told us it's called dog fennel, and we can't find anything to say differently so that's what we're calling it.

The pathway below is where the ducks like to hang out.


I like all the white feathers littering the ground. I'm trying to imagine what they're doing that causes the feathers to fly, since I've never seen them doing anything but sitting there. I have kind of a lurid imagination so at least I amuse myself thinking about it.

And yes, I know it's pathetic that I sit around thinking about it.

Carolina Red Clay + Rain & Goats: A Bad Idea

It's been raining off and on, and the ground is soaked....the red clay ground. We have two beautiful, sweet Boer goats...who like to lie on the ground. Sigh.


I think the red looks kind of cute, but I've noticed the last couple of days that they're starting to also smell....kind of goaty. They've never smelled at all before. We realized that we haven't cleaned their run-in shelter as often because of the rain and cold. Oops. I sense an unpleasant chore coming on for tomorrow.

This morning we were discussing the idea of getting a miniature donkey. We did some research online about them, and they're apparently very easy to care for, and make great pets. We almost had ourselves talked into it, until we read this line: "Remember though, that they are LOUD! So I would at least warn my neighbors."

Somehow I just don't see us going to the neighbors and saying, "Oh, by the way, we're getting a really loud donkey. You don't mind, do you?"

The Duck Armada

Our duck flock has been acting strangely lately. They keep forming and reforming. We think they're trying to decide whether to stay as one group of eight, or split up into groups. Who knows how ducks decide these things?



I can tell you that a lot of quacking goes into the process. Shelby, the black-and-white possible Muscovy cross duck, is a loud quacker, so we always know when the group is in dispute about something. We have two Muscovies, two white domestic ducks, and four mallards, plus Rusty, the red-headed wild duck who's joined the group. There are five females and three males, which probably accounts for some of the angst. (Rusty's contribution to the gender mix is unknown at this time.)

Shelby and Corky, the two black-and-white Muscovies, should theoretically pair up, and sometimes do, but Corky likes a lot of 'me' time, so Shelby hangs with the group. The two white ducks, Gilligan and Mrs. Howell, appear to be a pair, but prefer to be with the group. The mallards are anyone's guess.

I enjoy watching their group dynamics...it feels like a mini-UN, except that they mostly get along. It's oddly cheering, in its own way.

Still Life With Irving

Doesn't Irving look dignified? Unfortunately, the picture lies. Right after I took it, he looked down at me, whimpered, and then tried to come to me on the steep, wet slope of the wooden railing leading down the stairs.

I grabbed him just in time to keep him from tumbling 15 feet to the ground, whereupon he immediately started playing with a string hanging from my robe. Then we fought over which chair I got to sit on.

The ironic thing is that I'll probably be sad when he grows up and stops acting like an overgrown kitten.

Scenes From a Pond

The light over the pond was luminous this morning. It highlit all the golds and reds in the landscape, and treated us to spectacular views in between waves of dark clouds presaging the insistent rain we've seen most of today.




I can't get over the way the light changes the landscape. Outside my window right now, the grass appears a dull buff color under the dark clouds, but this morning, it was a range of vibrant colors.



Even the leafless trees add line and definition to the scene.

Early in the morning, after dawn, the light changed the grass to a deep reddish-orange.

I knew we would love this land in the warmer months, but I wasn't expecting it to be so beautiful in the winter light.

Claw-Footed Duck Vs. Small White Cat

Aren't birds supposed to be afraid of cats? I guess when you're a huge Muscovy duck with freaking claws on your feet, you can defy the natural order of things.

What you can't see in the picture below as Corky the duck approaches the gate is that there are bins full of cracked corn at the base of the wall between him and Halley, our small white cat.



The lure of the corn is clearly stronger than the fear of our little white predator. She appears to be certain that she's going to eating duck a la Corky soon. Is a duck-cat confrontation next?



Alas, no. Corky sat there and ate corn for about five minutes while Halley loomed over him, then he sauntered away.

Poor little cat can't get no respect.