More Heatwave, More Broody Ducks, More Bramble Clearing.

Another day well over 90 degrees. Most of the animals seem okay with it, the dogs seem to be a bit bothered. Dartha with her long fur has seemed a little uncomfortable, I need to learn to shave her in summer. The heat seems to bother her more now she's getting older. The cats find cool and comfy spots, the ducks have many swims, the chickens drink a lot, dust bath and sit in the shade, the rabbits dig down into the dirt and enjoy the cool earth, the lizards, well this is what they live for! Our bearded dragons especially, that breed hails from Australia and they love hot, sunny weather. They have been so happy getting outdoors a lot this summer.

Another hot one, looks like a couple chickens would like to join ducks in the pool!

I'm still working most of each day clearing all the excess thorny bramble and tree saplings out of the extended farm fenced area/orchard extension. This can be grueling and it can also be tedious but it's rewarding to see the progress. 10 years ago this area was all woodland. My husband cut down some trees to give the veg. garden more sunlight. I went back in and used a loper/cutter to cut many, many smaller trees over the last 6 years or so. We planted several fruit trees out there and they have done well but the bramble went crazy and spread fast once more light was in there. The whole area was a mass of regrowth, saplings and so many thorny black and raspberry bushes. these are fine and good but they were starting to adversely affect the young fruit trees. The bramble also made it very unpleasant to walk through that area. About 2 years ago I started to clear the bramble and saplings and anything else we didn't want a lot of there. This was in part to extend the chickens yard fence which I did some 2 years ago and again last year a bit more. This summer I decided that one main goal was to clear and fence the whole orchard area. This would more than double the chicken and ducks area, help the fruit trees to thrive, make room for more plantings and make the area more pleasant to walk through. It's taken a long time but the bramble clearing is about 3/4s done now. We will encourage the thorny berry bushes in certain areas and eliminate them from others to make room for more variety.

Having this area a little less wild might help with the new problem of broody ducks! They have so many places to hide nests of eggs now that the ducks are doing just that. For the 4th or 5th time I found that one duck was missing this evening. A search ensued, I was helped by Felix our Siamese mix cat this time and we found the broody duck on a nest of many eggs. She was way at the back of the fenced area this time. All this egg hiding and broody behavior is partly due to all these woody hiding places and party due to the heatwave and letting the birds out so early in the morning and shutting them up later than usual. I don't want them cooped up more than necessary as it does get warm in the coop. Clearing away more hiding spots and keeping the birds in longer when the heatwave finished should help. But tonight it was search with flashlights time again.

Felix and I found the broody duck and collected the eggs. Miss Duck put into the coop with the others. I'll be glad when this stage is over, it's so buggy at night and with flashlights the bags head right for me and bite me!