Revolving Doors and "Lost" Ducks

 I'm starting to think I should be calling this homestead the Revolving Door Farm instead of Butterscotch Farm...

Kat is leaving me (likely tomorrow), and will be traveling via ground transport to her wonderful new family in Texas. 

I'm sad to see her go... she's a truly wonderful and special little dog, and I've quickly become quite attached to her. Unfortunately, Breeze doesn't feel the same way, lol. In fact, things have escalated to the point that I can't have the girls loose together at all any more...Kat has the stitches and the "cone of shame" to prove it.

I feel like I've packed more life lessons into the past year and a half of homesteading than I had in all the previous years. And one big lesson that is beginning to sink in is this: I need to stop trying to bring adult, female intact dogs into an established pack!! 😂😂😂 

That being said, I'm grateful for the time I got with Kat, but looking forward to seeing how she settles in with her new family. I'm hoping that perhaps I'll get a puppy from her in a year or two! 

Other homestead news...we have enough snow on the ground now that I haven't tried to get out to cut more trees... that's going to have to be a spring project. 

Dad and my brother got the last bit of insulation up in the cottage. Next I need to finish the drywall, decide what I'm doing for my ceiling, frame out the bathroom, add trim, and then paint. That should pretty much finish the interior - yay!! 

When warmer weather comes, Dad and I will finish the siding and possibly install a front porch and a back stoop.

Here's how the cottage looks now... the snow makes it look pretty. In reality, I have so much construction debris lying around that it's not even funny....yard cleanup is very high on the priority list for when the snow melts. 

And here's a fun little story for you... about 3 weeks ago, I had to move my ducks from their little pen next to the chicken coop (on the left in the above photo) because the snow was high enough that Henry could get over the fence into their pen. I brought the ducks to the old goat shed. 

A few days after that, I brought a bale of shavings into the duck pen and was spreading it around. The ducks are definitely a bit flighty, and still regard me with considerable suspicion even after all these months, and they found this behavior quite alarming. Both took flight. One ricocheted off the door frame and ended up back in the pen. But the other flew straight out of the open top half of the door (I was only using a pallet as a door at the time). 

I hastily finished spreading the shavings, and then went out to catch the second duck, expecting to find her floundering in the deep snow in front of the pen.

But she was nowhere to be seen. There was blank, fresh snow as far as the eye could see in the field in front of the pen.

I was stymied, to say the least. Under the deepening gloom of a winter dusk, I started plowing through the knee-deep snow, searching along the edge of the field, pausing frequently to listen for a quack or the rustling of branches along the trajectory I imagined she may have taken. It was a cold night, and I hated the thought that she might spend the night freezing in the snow, or be found by a fox or coyote. 

 I searched for a good ten minutes along the edge of the woods before a thought sprang into my mind. I went back into the fence.... and into the chicken and duck pen.... around the corner past the coop... I stooped down and looked into the old duck pen... and there she was. She had flown "home." ❤️

In a straight line, the two pens are probably only 2-300 feet apart. But she likely flew in a curving trajectory of several hundred feet... and this from a bird who typically only flapped her wings a bit for exercise! 

I was enthralled with this demonstration of the incredible homing instinct God has placed in certain animals!

I carried her back to the other pen, where she and her sister were happily reunited. And then I secured the top of the door so that wouldn't happen again!!!

Happy Tuesday!!!