Dixie Doodle... our baby white Doberman

Dixie Doodle... at 6 months... she's a sweetie!

This is a quick update of activity at Brigid's Wood

I sawed off the back of a large shower enclosure that we didn't use in our Irish cottage to create a duck pond for our 13 now grown ducks (one of God's DUMBEST - albeit amusing - creatures). The way you tell the hens (EGG PRODUCERS) from the drakes (WELFARE RECIPIENTS) is by listening to the sound that they make... hens have a traditional duck "quack-quack" while the free loading males (you'd think a woman was writing this?) make a "peep-peep" sound. The problem is they all look VERY much alike and they are moving around constantly so it's hard to tell the males from the females. I think it's a plot by the drakes to avoid becoming Peking Duck.

That's "Paul Drake" (named for Perry Mason's private investigator) in the foreground.

The next news is about Alexis' garden which has been a phenomenal success this year... especially if you consider she has gotten her price per tomato down from $57.13/each to a paltry $11.78/each... and although still a LITTLE pricy, they taste GREAT especially with chicken salad (hmmmm... duck salad?) from a local tea room in Monteagle. Here is a shot of one of her square foot tomato boxes hanging heavy with tomatoes:

Here are some of her baby watermelons. Does anyone know when they're ripe?

And here's a cantaloupe that escaped the raised bed onto the gravel walkway:
Another closeup of one of the watermelons:
On to dogs (my favorite). As many will remember I lost my BIG buddy Baxter back in February. We buried him near the house and are now in the process of making an appropriate "park" area to memorialize his faithful life of love. We'll bury Alexis' other cremated kitty/doggie friends here as well. These are a couple of the lilies that have already bloomed.

Here's "Uncle Mosby" and our new baby Doberman "Dixie Doodle" sharing what we call the interspring mattress (it's actually a rebounder trampoline that she has teethed on). As you can see they already love each other:
"Boone Dog" is doing well but not shown. Boone has turned out to be VERY smart and the most obedient dog I've ever had... he actually comes when you call him.

Well, that'll catch up those who are interested just a little bit... more follows.

Duckie diaster averted and... please welcome Dixie

Night before last we almost had a water borne catastrophe of Titanic proportions. You might remember WKRP in Cincinnati's hog reporter Les Nesman? He famously declared after pushing several live turkeys out of a helicopter at 1000 feet, "...as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." As God is MY witness I thought ducks could swim. Actually they can swim and as "they say" our ducklings took to it like a "duck to water." Problem is their duckie down (no oiled feathers yet) got water logged pretty quickly and we ended up having to save our little water logged charges from doing their best submarine impersonation... uh-oooga... uh-oooga... dive... dive. Alexis and I had to get out the hair dryer and fluff the little guys up. It was touch and go for about 15 minutes as the 2 littlest ones began to wobble around and didn't look like they'd make it. Chris Jacobs our "Duck Master" warned us that they could keel over and croak if they got too much water... or would that be quack? Nevertheless we nursed them back to the land of the duckie living. Here they are right after launch:

We learned about the ducks about a month ago when we responded to a tip on Doberman puppies for sale. We arrived thinking "puppy" but we were quickly diverted to an education about ducks. Learning about ducks was fascinating... especially Indian Runners. We had planned on getting some chickens as a prep measure anyway but learned that ducks are easier to take care of and an Indian Runner can lay as many as 300 eggs per year (hopefully I didn't get 13 drakes!). Low maintenance, prolific egg producers... sounded good to me. We shifted gears from dogs to ducks and didn't buy a puppy that day.

I went back last Tuesday to get our ducklings that had just hatched and Chris Jacobs, the owner of the ducks and dogs, had one puppy left. We really wanted a dobie puppy and the price was right (some fancy-smancy dobies can cost upwards of $2,500!).

Chris' family owned both the mama dog (a blue dobie named Diamond) and daddy dog (a "white" Doberman named Pistol). We had never heard of a white Doberman but both dogs were registered with the Continental Kennel Club an alternative to the AKC. Both dogs were good natured which was very important to us (we didn't want an ill tempered Doberman?)... so we came home with "Dixie."

This is Diamond breathing a sigh of relief now that all 8 of her babies have found good homes:

Here's Pistol, the proud papa with Dixie:

Here are a couple of shots of Dixie with her Confederate battle flag collar... it'll be a little big for a while:

Here she is sleeping between her new Mama's feet:

And last but not least... Alexis' antique rose in bloom:

We are the proud parents of 13 ducklings

I picked up our 13 baby ducks this afternoon on the way back from a doctor's appointment in Murfreesboro. "Cute" isn't quite adequate to describe these little quackers. We'll keep them inside the house in a BIG Rubbermaid tub (under a light for heat) until the weather warms up a bit... they are VERY sensitive to cold... sensitive to the point of, if the temperature drops below 70 degrees they fall over dead. Gotta keep 'em warm. Happily, once they are grown they are very hearty. Looks like it will be touch and go for a few weeks as we become seasoned duck wranglers. Then it will be an additional 4 months before the hens start laying. This assumes of course that we didn't get 13 drakes. Here's a picture of our pile of baby ducks:Last week I was at my buddy Ed Russell's "antique" shop in Monteagle. Alexis and I were in need of some kind of towel storage thingie for the master bath... shelving, cabinets... something? I looked across Ed's shop and spotted the perfect weirdness in keeping with my reputation for marching to a different drummer. I quickly did a barter trade with Ed... we take turns cheating each other... I can't remember whether it was my turn to cheat him or vice versa? Nevertheless I traded an old sofa for his cow wine rack. Ed is extraordinarily talented with welding, metal work, etc. so he took his torch and cut every other row of bottle racks off to make more space for towels. In keeping with my description of myself "delightfully eccentric, yet unrefined" here is our NEW cow towel rack:

Spring update from the Cumberland Plateau in southern middle Tennessee

Here we are pulling into our driveway at Brigid's Wood... our new gate is open in this picture (Alexis wanted to be in the woods!):
This is a long shot of the front of our Irish cottage showing the whiskey barrels with honeysuckle plants. We are in progress of setting the barrels in place... the idea is to have the sweet smelling vines grow on the lattice work. Our fenced garden area and duck pen are between the house and the storage building. The garden fence is barely visible in this picture unless you click the picture to enlarge it.
This is a picture of what our "landscaping" will look like... au natural... NO GRASS MOWING!
Tomorrow we get our 15 Indian Runner ducklings... we have been told that they are relatively easy to raise and after about 5 months they will begin producing as many as 300 eggs/year/duck (assuming we don't end up with 15 drakes)... the duckies are just another one of our preps getting ready for the future that Obama has in store for us. Today we put medal siding on our duck house. It still needs to be washed down because the tin was muddy but this is where the little quackers will get out of "fowl" weather. Their waterer and feeder (red) are sitting next to the "baby duck ramp:"Here's a video of these unusual ducks... we don't have a Border Collie so I'll be responsible for herding the little quackers... you'll see why they are called "runners:"

Although we haven't got everything in the ground yet (green beans, cucumbers, more onions, more tomatoes, medicinal/culinary herbs, etc.), our garden is doing well (2 blueberry bushes are not shown... they will produce this year).
We have 6 yellow squash plants:
About 8 tomato plants:
Lots of Vidalia onions (yum!) and about 5 strawberry plants in the 4 X 4 raised bed next to the onions:
This is Alexis' 12th century antique rose that needs to be transplanted:
This is the view of our "front yard" and driveway looking out our kitchen window (with our new gate closed):
All in all, we love living in the woods on the Cumberland Plateau... we even welcomed a new barbecue restaurant to Monteagle (7 miles east of us on I-24) last week... our prayers have been answered... it ain't Texas/Oklahoma BBQ but it's not bad.

This is a shameless post to help my daughter...

My daughter is trying to learn Internet marketing and she needs as many back links to this video as possible so I am posting it for her here (a back link is one web site that links to another site). Here is the URL if you want to view it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDtvr16fLY

Thanks for looking. You may also enjoy seeing some of my son-in-law's artwork. Derek is self-taught and VERY good... click here to go to his site.

An update

Spring is here and there ain't nutin' like spring in Tennessee (Tennessee put the double "e" in green). The leaves aren't popping out yet but I'm sure that's only days away. Meanwhile we've taken advantage of several warm days. Last Friday I hired Terry Stephens to bring in three loads of compost and to spread a load of 1/2" gravel in the garden area to reduce the "muddy" factor. He also dressed up the parking area/driveway with his BobCat. Here's a picture of the front of the house:We have half barrels and other large containers to put along the front of the house for flower boxes and climbing "stuff" (?)... probably roses or Confederate Star Jasmine. I'm going to mount the "Brigid's Wood" sign on the left side of the door and we'll plant flowers in this really cool metal clothes hamper below the sign... there will be flowers coming out everywhere:Before Terry brought the compost and gravel I built six 4' X 8' raised beds for this year's garden. Using forks on Terry's BobCat we brought last year's four "square foot gardens" over and put them next to the raised beds. Then Terry filled the raised beds with compost:Alexis and her mother worked this afternoon and began prepping the soil in the 4 square foot garden boxes. We also planted some flowers around Baxter's grave... I sure miss my big buddy! He's been gone now almost seven weeks.