It's all going rather well ...

A big welcome back to Tadley and home, Gerd and Maria!  I do hope you had a wonderful and restful few days at the Chilworth Manor?

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On Wednesday 15th it was not only friend Pine's birthday but it was VET day for Honey and Mocca - it was also a WET day, but the ducks don't mind that.

I had arranged for Honey to get a hormone implant as her walking hadn't really improved, and at the same time I'd asked for Mocca to get a check-up on her bumble foot.  There was no deterioration in her foot's condition, and Mocca behaved extremely well, sitting quiet in the box while Honey was being treated.

The Suprelorin implant [which is used a lot in chickens to give them a rest from laying] has to be administered with a big needle, so Honey had to be "put out" briefly with gas.  After our return home she was rather groggy, she stayed with the others a bit but then rested up in one of her favourite places:

 

 

I've inserted a slightly larger picture of Honey resting [eyes open!] above where you can just see her head.













Like I said, it was a wet day - we've had quite a bit of rain recently and the ducks were happy to have their favourite puddle back:


The last two days I've also seen GertieII standing at the edge of the puddle for ages, just staring into space or preening herself, she appears to have given up on her breeding urge.

 

I had only just taken these shots of her through the door of the sunlounge when racing up came Jay-Z and gave her a vicious-looking chase back into her enclosure.  Of the 5 ducks who sleep in the hut in there on their own Gertie is the one the 3 drakes pursue most, her sister Billie doesn't seem to get bothered much at all.

                                      I love this photo of my only two fawn&white ducks.

These two pictures left and right are cut out from the larger one above them.  They show Gertie, after she had been chased away by our black drake Jay-Z only a little while before, lying peacefully at a short distance from both black drakes who were now also peaceful.  Gertie still keeps herself a little distant from the others sometimes, but I don't think there's anything wrong with her.  The barley straw "monster" you can see behind Honey in the photo above right seems to have done a good job clearing the green algae.

With Honey I can't see much difference in her condition after the implant, but they do say it sometimes takes a week for it to be noticed, here's hoping!

Yesterday I spent a long time doing some clearing work in my little "woodland garden" bordering the ditch.  I had already tried, weeks before, to give our planted bluebells some space from the smothering nettles and umbellifers, but realized when I got there that it had been in vain:


And these bluebells that John planted for me years ago are well behind lots of other self-seeded ones [also pink and white ones] which are flowering all over the garden:

This is the only one I could see about to open in our woodland:


This shady bit of garden is one of my favourites, but I'm forever struggling to keep the unwanted growth down.  I've planted lots of treasured plants there like a white Echinacea, harebells and Trilliums, but they've all failed.  These, however, come up faithfully year after year and I'm grateful, they are the handkerchief tree - the stem in the middle front just beginning to sprout leaves and behind it the lime green of the Epimedium with the Thalictrum aquilegifolia on its left.  To the right is the snake bark maple tree and, not visible in the photo, an oak tree I planted [from a sprouting acorn].

Because I was able to supervise the three residents of the bottom duck hut while I was working down there I opened the fence, and very soon Captain and Anke were well into the field and on to the nature pond [which is still not filling up in spite of lots of rain].  Candida, however, must be feeling her age - same as I am! - and stopped behind curled up at the bottom of this alder:

I did a bit more fence mending on my back to the house at teatime as I had noticed that Anke had pushed one of my mending wires wide and had created an opening to slip through, also there were a few more broken strands - either newly broken or some I'd missed, and that bit of mending was successful for at least a few hours as John didn't have to fetch Anke back in last night.

To finish for this long entry some more photos: 

Since the greater part of our duck community have been shut away from the big pond the flags/irises on the left, which had been eaten right down to the ground earlier in the year, have recovered and are growing well, as is the hosta in front and the Rogersia on the right.







Behind the pond the crab apple which is growing through the big oak tree is flowering beautifully at the moment:

Back at the house I thought I'd finally take a photo of a large patch of violas at the foot of John's big shed .... but I'd left it too late, they'd all finished flowering.  All I could find were a couple of little flowers at the edge of the garage:

At least these little red flowers [which  I don't know the name of] were still there.  They come up every year by the side of the fish pond: 

 And the tulip-forme magnolia behind the house is finally opening its beautiful flowers: