Yesterday afternoon Ruby the Corgi Pup strolled out to the backyard and FLEW INTO A BARKING, BAYING FRENZY!
Yes. Corgis can bay, after a fashion. Ruby’s characteristic statement, when confronted with anything new, different, suspicious, or amusing is an ear-splitting arf-arfaROOOOOOO!
When this didn’t settle down and indeed seemed to be getting more and more frantic, I went out to investigate and found, lo! An intruder!
Yup. There she is. I’ve heard ducks will sometimes take up residence in backyard pools, but this is the first time I’ve seen one do so. Certainly the first time in MY backyard pool.
She’s probably started a nest under the (mightily overgrown) shrubbery near the pool. It’s a perfect spot to raise a duck family. I haven’t seen a mallard, though. Usually they’ll hang around for awhile after getting a female duck with eggs. As it were.
This morning it looks like she’s decided the hotel is open and it’s four stars.
Well, the mess she’ll make won’t be cute at all — duck droppings stain the pool plaster and the CoolDecking, so I suppose she’s going to have to find a new rental. Cleaning up last year’s algae infestation was a vast amount of work and expense, and this will make an even bigger mess to clean up than that. Besides, I can’t imagine what she could eat out there. Ducks forage on grass — there’s no grass in the backyard or the front yard, or in any of the neighbors’ yards. And of course nothing edible grows in a puddle of Clorox.
It’s against the law to harass wild ducks, so I’ll need to find some way to discourage her.
Ruby is anxious to take out after her, and that would be the ideal way to scare her off. But Ruby doesn’t yet know how to find her way out of the water (there’s only one spot, about two feet long by 18 inches wide, where she even can get out). The water is still a little t0o cold for me to jump in, which will have to happen for me to train her. Maybe M’hijito would bring Charley over — he can swim, but diving in ain’t his thing.
We’ve had a little cold snap, which has delayed pool water warming despite several days in the 90s and high 80s. So swimming season is coming on a bit late. Ordinarily I’d be in the water by now, and I’m sure watching a lumbering human splash around would be amply alarming to a momma duck.
LOL! I’ve seriously thought about converting that thing into a gigantic backyard pond. When replastering time comes along (which it will, soon enough: $10,000), have a dark color put in there; install a rock waterfall, dechlorinate it, float some pond plants, pull out the CoolDeck and replace it with gardens…wouldn’t that be nice? Put some koi in there…the the duck would be right at home.
But I’m not sure it’s legal to do that. There are mosquito ordinances, and the County flies helicopters to spy on people’s backyards. If they see a green pool, they’ll cite you. And of course, 18,000 gallons of pond water would register with them as “green pool.”
A-a-a-a-a-n-d… The new tree guy just found a brand-new nest of bees a-building. When we walked into the backyard, we found a bunch of them flying in and out under the deck.
This is a serious problem, because there’s no place else for the dogs to go — I’ve fenced off the pool area and can’t leave Ruby out in that area because she falls into the drink in the best of circumstances.
DAMN it! Just when I have to pay some guy $350 that I can’t afford to hack back the trees, now I’ve got to pony up ANOTHER $150 to have bees exterminated. Hell and Damn. That’s going to put the eefus on the plan to rent examples of the cars I’m interested in buying. I’ll have to let the car guy know I can’t do that next week. It also means the planned shopping trip later this month is off. And tonight I’m supposed to go out to dinner before a concert…will be ordering a cup of coffee and pretending to be too sick to eat, I guess.
Good thing I came in under budget for two months running…
I feelz ya. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
I totally love the duck stop over. We have a community pool in our development (village, as my grandson calls it.) A couple of ducks have used it for a rest stop on their way north/south for several years now. They stay for a week or so then move on. All of us home owners think they’re adorable,….. the managers……not so much. They keep reminding us that there is a great deal of mess to clean up after. We all nod, but still secretly think they’re adorable. So it’s possible there is no nest, just a duck taking a break on her flight north.
The bees are a whole other matter. I am terrified of them and don’t care if an entire hive is wiped out. Yes, I know that’s wrong in so many ways, but we all have our phobias.
Sorry about the bees [?]. We had an infestation of hornets within one of our bump outs. Called an exterminator and he said there must be thousands in the space and they were getting into the house. He sprayed something through the floor and we covered the doorway of the utility/wash room in the basement with a blanket to keep the things confined. I hate stinging things and any kind of bug! Still have dead hornets on the shelving LOL.
We had a duck who laid her eggs behind a clematis – the male stayed around for a while, but the eggs never hatched :-(.