The Second Day of Autumn

This past week went by in a blur, as I madly rushed about, scattered and late for just about everything.  When it's like this at school all day long, I get back to Frogpond in the late afternoon completely zapped.  And then I set myself to do everything that needs attending to around here -- at breakneck speed, before the light fades.  I study the little Zen saying on the side of my blog with the picture of the supremely relaxed bullfrog by it and wonder when exactly I forgot to breathe and go slowly.  And then I make the effort to breathe and go slowly.  So. 

Yesterday was the first day of autumn.  We had a final (I hope) blast of heat last week, with temperatures almost reaching 100 degrees every day.  Tuesday afternoon I took out the camera to see if there was any sign of the new season anywhere -- I'm that sick of the dust and dryness of summer. And there was.

You have to look closely, but here are the first splashes of orange in the tupelo trees.  Hallelujah!

Corny continues on his diet and exercise program.  I know that it would be better (for both of us) if I rode him, but for now it's just got to be lunging in the round pen with the occasional walk around the pond on the end of a lead.  He's not a happy boy, but I'm relieved that he's gradually slimming down. 

The African geese are gradually settling in.  We still keep them penned in the dog kennel most of the time, but let them out in the afternoons.  They nervously wander around and don't seem to have any "smarts" about how to deal with the freedom of the wide world.  This is, I think, going to be a slow process.  We did discover that they love leafy lettuce.  When we throw some in their pen, they dive in and gobble it up.   A good sign!

Finally, Joe the custodian lent us the huge pot he uses when processing the chickens he slaughters.  I brought it home last evening and set it in the carport.  The overriding question of the weekend is whether we can actually bring ourselves to use it. 

We've discovered that there's a huge market for Muscovy ducks and they sell for around $25 a bird.  Joe found this out when he put the four drakes we'd given him on Craig's List for $10 apiece -- his phone rang off the hook from the all the people that wanted to buy them at that price. 

To be honest, I still would rather kill the birds here so that they aren't frightened more than necessary.  But we'll have to see how it goes going through the slaughtering process -- the plan is to kill and prepare a single drake tomorrow (there are several who are rough with the hens, so it will be one of them).  Even if we find that going through this isn't too awful, we don't know if we'll actually enjoy eating Muscovy duck.  I'm very interested to see how this turns out.

The very best outcome would be that slaughtering and preparing a duck for the table, while not pleasant, is doable and not too time-consuming and that the cooked duck is absolutely delicious. A tall order.

To be continued.