I'd left the hose running when it was filling the last of the 19 containers for the ducks, and it had flooded the area around it much to the delight of my feathered friends.
They had created a lovely muddy track alongside the garage where the water had been running. When John returned later in the afternoon I could see him looking at this quizzically - but I didn't own up. Ssshhh, don't you go telling on me now!
While I had the camera out I took a couple of photos of the tulipforme Magnolia which has decided to bloom again [usually in April]. I'd forgotten to cut some for Maria's bunch of flowers when they were driving home ...... that's what the flowers look like when they're open, Maria!
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Remember when I wrote recently how I'd shut Bless and Georgie into the wrong huts at night? Well, I did it again, twice! No, not Bless again, she's making sure she gets out of the way quick when I'm about to shut the bottom three in, it was Purdy [who used to lie so prettily in the Thyme in front of the sun lounge]. It was on Saturday night, John was out at a Salvation Army Band Concert and Strictly Come Dancing had started on TV. So when it looked a bit dim outside at 10 to 7 I rushed out to the bottom hut clapping my hands and shouting BEDTIME - as you do when you want to put ducks to bed. Captain and Anke joined the big crowd briefly going uphill, and as I rushed to head them off Purdy was with them and that's how she finished up in Captain's hut.
I didn't want to miss much of the dancing so I didn't let the others mess about at all and shooed the first lot up the ramp into the shed, then the second lot up the ramp in the enclosure ..... and counted 9 instead of 11. Yep, there were 14 in the shed the next morning, Purdy made a noise after coming out of Captain's hut but nowhere near as loud as Bless had done, and pretty soon she was making advances to one of the new boys in the water while everyone else headed off to the field:
I did it again on Sunday night. Captain and Anke had made it up the hill with the others as far as the topiary caterpillar, and when I drove them back two of the dark girls from this year's hatch went with them into the hut - or so I thought. They turned out to be Tuts and Dotty from the shed 13 yesterday morning ..... well, it was getting dark!
Dotty, and especially Tuts, dived into the breakfast bowl yesterday morning and only Anke from the residents joined in; Captain and Candy made a dignified retreat:
I took a very short video of Dotty calling for her other mates, again, nothing as loud or persistent as Bless had done, and if this link doesn't work I shall put it on YouTube again.
I'd noticed the day before that the 9 young ones with Billie and Gertie had left their enclosure through the gate near the shed to investigate if the 13 had left any breakfast before they ran off to the duck pond [other people's food ALWAYS tastes better than your own!] , and than they had come alongside the garage and halted en masse, posing beautifully, when they spotted me filling the water bucket near the heather bed. As I had the camera handy yesterday morning I wanted to capture that moment of posing - but what did they do? They came out between conservatory and greenhouse, and not all together but in dribs and drabs:
The last few days I've been very pleased to see the whole bunch of them coming up to the house again, not just in the afternoons when the food at the duck pond has run out, and they've been in the frog pond again as well.
To finish for today a photo I took first thing this morning, a mist or fog lying on the field, very autumnal!
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