Duck Apartheid is Lifted

Well, it's been a while.
With the summer hols finished, the return to work did not go quite to plan as Sue and I found ourselves in at the deep end.
All our enthusiasm and fresh ideas for the smallholding have had to be put to one side. Having said that, the wheels are slowly being put in motion for an ambitious new project.

Big ideas are all well and good but it is the small details that make the smallholding such a special place to be.
This week we are celebrating the end of duck apartheid.

A little duck history first. We originally had three white ducks which were passed to us by an ex-smallholder. One of these still survives. We also had a small flock of black Cayuga ducks which we thinned down to a trio. Unfortunately one of the females then died and the male just vanished - presumably taken by a predator or a dog.

So for a while we had the old white duck and the old Cayuga with her limp, a droopy wing and a bald patch.

When the Pekin meat ducks came along, black duck completely disappeared. We presumed she had come to some unfortunate end, but a brief sighting a week later was followed by another after a further week.

Eventually we discovered her sitting tight deep in the lovage patch. Meanwhile old white duck teamed up with the new white ones. In fact despite being half their size they respected her seniority and made her their leader.

Skip forward a few weeks and black duck finally realised that no amount of patience was going to make her eggs hatch - hardly surprising since there was no drake around when she started sitting.
But now her best friend was gone, leading the white duck gang, and they were having none of it. It was like a duck version of Westside Story.

Black duck tried her best. She hung around on the outskirts but old white duck had forgotten her, moved on. Every time black duck tried to join the gang she was pecked and pushed away. Fortunately a duck's beak is no lethal weapon.

Since I dispatched a dozen of them for the table 

the ducks have been much less approachable! 

Look carefully and you can see black duck 

with her white pate near the back of the flock

Don't let it be said that persistence doesn't pay. Last night a lone dark figure, barely visible in the gloom of dusk, followed the white duck gang into their night stable.
And this morning black duck and white duck led the gang out! They have all hung around together all day long.

Duck apartheid is over. This is one smallholding tale which has a happy ending.

As peace breaks out we had our first dramatic and chilly autumn sunset of the year. 

The seasons they are a-changing.