A Frogpond Sunday

Bruce takes being visible to motorists very seriously!

One thing about Frogpond: Sundays ain't no day of rest here.  The day started leisurely enough (for me, at any rate), with me waving goodbye to Bruce as he set off on a 20 mile bike ride.  His route was a loop along some local back roads and he'd call in a couple of hours for me to drive about 10 miles to the tiny town of Milton (population: about 8) to  collect him and his bike. 

The big guy in the center is the troublemaker

I stayed home to work on my path project in the orchard garden  while it was still relatively cool outside.  I only did a teensy section up by my stick palisade, but this wound up taking several hours.  Setting the the rocks for the step took a frustratingly long time because of the fight I had getting the largest one planted.  It insisted on shifting and wobbling every time I stepped on it and I had to take it out and relevel the ground over and over again.  Finally, it got bored messing with me and settled into place.
This must have also been the signal for Bruce, because right then he called for me to come pick him up, which I did.  Back home for lunch, a game of cribbage (which - unbelievably - he won) and then a bit of a nap.  And then the day got into gear.

Proud mama

I went outside to do some watering and popped my head into the barn to check on Stripe and her twelve eggs.  The eggs were gone.  In their place was a cluster of ducklings huddled beneath their very bemused mama. She'd been sitting on them for such a long time that I was pretty sure that the eggs were bad.  Surprise!

The original duck raft anchored off the island

Bruce then got busy building a new duck raft for the pond.  We already have one out on the pond and Smudge and her eight ducklings sleep on it at night.   But with another brood of babies soon taking up residence down there, one island isn't enough real estate.  So Bruce happily got out his power tools and commenced putting together duck raft #2.

Itty Bitty Cuke

My taters

 

While he hammered, sawed and cussed in the garage, I harvested a small crop to potatoes in the orchard garden. This gave me room in the bed to put in six tiny cucumber plants.  It's late to be putting anything in, but we'll see...

Raft, anchor (in the bucket) and proud Bear on Kubota

 Bruce confidently stated that it would take him about an hour to finish the raft, so, naturally, two hours later he was done. He got it loaded up on the Kubota and off we went to the pond. He was in charge of all the grunt work while I, in my new position as Official Frogpond Chronicler, skipped along behind swinging my camera.  

And they're off!

Diverted by almost-ripe blackberries on dam

Granny Goose, Smudge the Duck and her second brood of ducklings



When we got down to the far side of the pond, everyone came over to see what was going on and to offer helpful hints, suggestions and advice. Bruce patiently ignored us all.

The first brood of ducklings

The launch

I love this pic -- Murphy and his dad both concentrating so hard!

Bruce the Tugboat

Almost there

The ground crew still yelling out advice

Tying the raft to the willows and securing the anchor

When Bruce got to the island, he gave a big yell. 

"What's wrong?" I called. 

"I count 14 huge bullfrogs sitting in the willows -- they're as big as saucers!"

Hmmm...so that begs the question: Will a saucer-sized bullfrog eat a golf ball-sized duckling?  I guess we'll find out.  Stay tuned.

And that's it.  We have survived another Frogpond Sunday.