How is it already nearing the end of August? Between the revolving door of guests and the near constant rain, it feels like summer has yet to begin. But before I know it, I’ll be pulling my sweaters out of storage! (Which actually makes me really excited to think about.)

So what have we been up to these past two weeks? Quite a bit. Shocking, I know, for such under achievers like we are. I’ve actually been away from home a bit: first for a memorial service in NYC and then 4 days in South Carolina visiting my sister. I took Amtrak down to Penn Station and lugged my suitcase and garment bag through the subway and to my hotel. (Somehow I’d forgotten how difficult it is to move through the city carrying anything bigger than a purse.) It felt a little empty, even for a Sunday, and I was grateful for that. After being so accustomed to our quiet homestead (other than the animal noises), I wasn’t ready for the full cosmopolitan bustle. I appreciated being back in Central Park where the service was held, and reminiscing about the days I’d worked with the actor whose life we were celebrating. Then early the next morning I made my way to Laguardia where I got on a plane for the first time in almost 2 years! My honeymoon was in October of 2019, and Covid canceled some travel plans we’d made for the spring of 2020. So it was exciting to be breaking that seal, if a little nerve wracking. I feel confident in the efficacy of the vaccine, but the Delta variant does make me squirm a bit. My husband and I have talked about this: that it’s smart to take the precautions we can but at a certain point we have to live our lives with an accepted amount of risk. Taking this trip was worth the risk for me, since my sister had recently bought a house and had a baby! So there was lots to see and catch up on. I loved getting to spend those 4 days with them all and I held my new niece as often as I could. (Is there anything like a sleeping newborn in your arms?)

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When I got back to my own family, though, I felt like I was where I belonged. My handsome husband met me with a huge smile at the terminal and Sadie met me with a big open mouth at home. (She greets me like this in the mornings, too: a very wiggly butt and love bites, which usually leads to a long cuddle session on the floor.) I suspect that even the ducks were happy to see me, despite playing it cool. My husband had again taken on all the chores while I was gone, without complaint. He walked me around the property, to show me what he’d done and we said hello to the various animals and checked on the progress of the plants. The vegetable crates on the deck had done well, despite the torrential rain. The tomato plants are barely holding on, though still producing plenty of fruit. The carrots have been delicious (I’m a convert!), and so satisfying to pull out of the earth and toss right into a salad or cut up with hummus. The potato plants seem to be coming along, but it’s so hard to know what’s going on underground! I’m totally new to growing them and feel a little like I’m flying blind, but hopefully nature is doing its thing and we’ll have a potato harvest in a few weeks. The herbs are all thriving: the basil, parsley, and lavender (which is finally sprouting some little purple flowers). I like having multiples of each herb spread out over separate boxes so if one gets picked over I can move on to the next and let the previous one regenerate. The 5 peaches on our tree had finally ripened and we shared them over the next few days. Maybe I’m biased but they were some of the tastiest I’ve ever eaten! The tree itself is looking really good now, so that bodes well for next year’s harvest. I’m eager to get another, so I’m starting to set aside some seed money (get it?), for the spring.

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We’ve come to a few decisions (at last!), about the gardens. The backyard “main” garden will stay as is. I’ll need to up my weeding and pruning so it doesn’t get so overgrown as it’s looking now. The side garden in the backyard will be turned over in the spring into an apple orchard and bee haven. Yes, this means we’re digging up the flowers and bushes that are there now. I feel a little guilty about it, but I’ve decided to put an ad on Craigslist to see if anyone wants to “rescue” them. I’d like for those plants to have a loving home and I just don’t have the time to spend tending them! I love the idea of having apple trees and maybe some cherry trees instead, and bee hives between each. The hives will be in almost full sun there and close to the pond, so they’ll get the heat and water they need.

Then there’s the garden alongside the driveway, which mostly takes care of itself. But…my husband and I have been talking about converting this into an in-ground vegetable and herb garden. It’ll take some work. There’s landscape cloth a few inches under the surface that needs to be uncovered and ripped out. I guess that means the soil has to be put into wheelbarrows first so we can access the cloth, and then mixed with compost and amendments before being spread back on the ground. We’re talking about building low raised beds here which would make it easier to add nutrients and keep out weeds. It’s a simple construction but I was starting to get a little stressed about the “how” of it until we tackled a project the other day that’s the same basic concept…

A new pool frame for our ducks!

With all the rain we’ve had for the last 6 weeks, the duck run has turned into a mud pit. The girls don’t seem to mind and they actually really like digging holes in the soft ground, looking for worms and grubs. But unfortunately it’s not the healthiest conditions for their feet, and they can get infections from standing in mud day after day. I asked my duck groups on Facebook (which now total 4. Yes, FOUR.), to see if anyone had suggestions. Firstly, I learned that the straw bale we have next to their ramp is a health hazard. I had noticed it started to look soggy and even sprouted a mushroom (!), and it turns out that yup, straw will get moldy and cause respiratory issues for the girls. So we mucked that out as the rain was pelting us, and threw it into the compost pile. We replaced the bale with one of the empty wooden crates…and the ducks have still to use it. They act totally frightened by any change, so this new step is a no-go. The first few days we let them out of their coop, they actually chose to fly from the top of their ramp rather than waddle halfway down and hop onto the crate and then the ground. Silly ducks! I think they shocked themselves by the knowledge that they all can use their wings to get airborne, but we’re hoping they don’t use their new skill too much. For one thing, they’re clumsy and fly into things rather than just gliding gracefully to the ground! I also started worrying about the amount of mud around their pools, which we dump out and refill every day. Their run is on a bit of a slope, so the water seeps down into the woods, but there’s still a lot of standing mud left behind. So we came up with a very basic fix. We got a few 4x4s and cut one in half (using our fabulous new table saw), and made a rectangular frame that measures 4’x8′. Then I spread cardboard in the bottom to suppress the weeds and we poured 10 bags of river rocks on top. My husband fastened the outer edges of the beams together with 2″ metal braces, and that was that! We put the pools on top of the pebbles which will now filter the water that gets dumped or splashed over the sides.

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We set this up in the morning before we had a wedding to attend, so it was a pretty fast job. We raced around, making multiple trips to Home Depot and keeping our eye on the time (and the forming rain clouds). But I’m actually so pleased with how it turned out! Because we were leaving in the afternoon and couldn’t keep an eye on everyone once we did, we decided to leave Joni and Judy’s pool in their fenced in area, and we moved only the OG’s pool onto this new platform. Remember what I said about being afraid of change? It took them a good hour to trust this this was indeed their same swim area, just updated! Once they got in, they didn’t seem to mind the difference. Then the next day when we could monitor the girls and manage the sass, we moved Joni and Judy’s pool to this new spot, too. This was a big deal! It meant that we took away the fence separating the two “zones” and integrated the groups of ducks. Now, technically this was a little soon since we were supposed to keep them apart for 30 days. However…with all the rain, I didn’t love that the two new girls were confined to an increasingly muddy area with not a lot of drainage. AND on a few occasions we came out to the run to find that one of them had flown over the fence to hang with the OG’s! So their germs were already being shared. And clearly the new ladies were ready to get the party started. They’d been talking and pecking a lot through the slats at each other, so we figured it couldn’t be too much of a leap to let them wander together at last.

It was pretty hilarious when we took the fence away that first morning. LOTS of talking (one can only guess what they were all saying), and walking around each other in circles. Maxine and Laverne got a little feisty and latched onto the back of Joni and Judy’s necks. We’d assumed the first few days would be a little “nippy,” so this wasn’t totally unexpected and was over in a few seconds. J & J learned where their pool was pretty quickly, but the problem is that the OG’s are now spreading out across both pools and often kick the new ladies out! We hope they’ll find their courage soon to stand their ground and that the girls will realize there’s enough water to go around. This pool upgrade was really basic and part of a bigger remodel of the run. Eventually we plan to attach hoses or PVC pipe to each pool, bury the lines underground, and drain the pool water into the woods. That will be a huge help in keeping the mud to a minimum, as long as we don’t have another monsoon season like we have this summer.

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An added bonus of this pool project was that it showed us how easy it would be to build the frames for the vegetable and herb garden next year. The lumber wouldn’t be too expensive and we could maybe salvage it from something on the property already. Or even find someone’s leftovers on Craigslist. It’s also given us confidence to replace the fence that’s rusted and broken in a few spots. My hope is to build a really sturdy wooden fence with chicken wire attached, so I think now we see that’s within our grasp. And still no eggs! We check every morning, but unless the ducks are masters at hiding them in the straw, they haven’t laid anything yet. I’ve started saving egg cartons anyway, waiting for the day they’ll be filled…