It's bonfire night tonight, very convenient for the "working/school population" it being a Saturday. No, we shan't be attending Guy Fawkes celebrations, instead I'll write a little bit about how Hedda tries very hard to escape the medication ritual every morning.
All 5 in that hut know what's happening by now. As soon as John starts emptying and then re-filling the water buckets and bowls the chattering in the hut gets noisy, and one or other of the inhabitants hops onto the nest box to keep an eye on proceedings through the ventilation grill. I put down the food containers [one of them being the one containing Glucosamine Sulphate with some tidbits to tempt Hedda - which always works!] and go to open the hut. Now the fun starts. All 5 shrink to the back and then eye up the best route past me and out, which four of them manage by either pushing past me left and right or flying onto the nest box first for a higher exit, and now and again one flies right over my head parting my hair for me. That leaves Hedda. I can see her thinking, she looks me right in the eyes, then dodges left or right trying to get past - so far I've always managed to grab her in the attempt, and I have a right time trying to hold down her powerful wings, she's a strong girl. Just recently she's tried a different strategy. She ducks down and dips a couple of times preparing for take-off .... and I catch her just as she does!
These shenanigans in the bottom hut remind me of the wonderfully funny story my friend Heike Spletzer wrote about her duck Waltraud and her mates, from the time when Waltraud had a growth under her foot which necessitated daily catching and treatment [she eventually had half her foot amputated, but continues to do well with this handicap]. Here are some excerpts:
I could hear all four of them kicking up a rumpus inside the hut as I came out of the door ... I even saw Waltraud flying by the window, unbelievable but true. Took the direct path to the duck house, a glance through the window revealed she was still wearing the shoe – a miracle – although the hue was a delicate shade of grey now, no matter. I opened the door. Waltraud stood facing me, a perceived 1.80m tall, wings planted on hips, eyes fixed firmly on the great outdoors ..... in the background the theme tune from “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”. All in all a highly dramatic situation, even the spaghetti brought as a peace offering was flung heedlessly out of my hand and into the hut. Such a runner duck lady is quite a handful. I held her back with both hands while the others fled the field of battle in a hurry.....
.....
Off we went to the duck house, the mob heard us and at once fell silent. I got nervous ... hubby also thought
„my God, what plan have they hatched now?... Their strategy was simple but effective. I opened the door, Waltraud didn’t bother to stand and face me but tried to storm past me with flailing wings ..... whoa ... she nearly caught me napping, but I managed to catch hold of her and hubby just caught the drake. Bathed in sweat and wide awake by now we stood there holding our „little waddlers"" in our arms. The drake’s leg got the cream treatment and then he stormed out .... which went better than yesterday – and we took Waltraud off to the kitchen. She rolled her eyes heavenwards as if to say “don’t you have anything better to do?” We didn’t....
....
This morning I woke up at 06.17, but not because our feathered little pigs were trying to take the duck house
apart, no, it was deathly silence out there. I rubbed my eyes, this was worrying, veeeery worrying. I mobilized
hubby and we went out. A noise penetrated the silence, clack-crack ....... we knew then ..... Waltraud had loaded her SMG and taken off the safety catch. This was no rumpus any more, this was a battle, an embittered war waged by our white-brown one. I looked at hubby whose face had taken on the colour of our house wall – white grey – and my knees buckled. Carefully we crept up to the hut door and still there was absolute quiet. I opened the top half of the door and stood eye to eye with Waltraud, her SMG ready to fire, determination written on her face. I spoke soothingly to her, promised her crescent noodles and freshly picked dandelion leaves. Slowly she let the rapid fire gun sink to the ground and I wiped my sweat-soaked brow. - She’s running through the garden now, high-spirited and cheerful, you’d never know how madly determined our sweet Waltraud can be........
I'd like to add here that I've never even tried the peace offering of noodles, much as Hedda likes them. I just know they'd be scattered all over the hut!
Now to something different. I wrote, didn't I, that I couldn't get decent clear shots with my new birthday camera, nearly all shots looked fuzzy like in this:
Only when I put it to the furthest extent of the 18 zoom did I manage to get fairly clear photographs as in these two - the one on the right, by the way, shows Billie-Jean rising out of the pond and Beyoncé/Praline standing next to the blue bowl.
Carl came round on Tuesday, I needed help once again with a computer problem. He examined the camera and looked at the view finder and realized that the camera wasn't focusing as it should. So it's back in the shop now to be tested and I'm using my trusty 'old camera' again.
A few autumnal photos from 2nd November:
On the left here is Candida playing stewardess ... the exits are here, and here ...... while Joseph is looking on.
When you think how far away I am from the pond while taking these photos from the house [I've put an arrow in the picture below to show how far away it is] then my 'old camera' isn't so bad in my view.
We don't collect all the leaves that are falling like mad at the moment, we leave most of them to the worms to pull into the ground. But we have raked up a lot and filled them into 6 big plastic sacks so far for leaf mould.
Oh, I nearly forgot. For our monthly walk we went to outside Packington, Normandy Wood and all around. It was great, even the rain held off for us!
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