A view of the ruckus from outside the nest.

It has become apparent that these duck fights will continue every day until both are done laying.

Fancy (the one with the "fancy" head) spends much more time in the nest than Bella (I had to name her something to keep them straight. Bella means 'beauty' in Italian and Latin - and really, both ducks are very pretty ladies.)  So the nest is Fancy's and Bella is the daily intruder - but, she really needs a place for her babies, too!  So we give her a pass and wish we could tell her that there will be more nest boxes available next year.

At any rate - the squabbles continue each morning.  Today, I decided to capture the view of what the duck fight looks like from outside the house.   As you can see, the nest is really rocking! If you listen closely, you can hear them squawking and banging around inside the nest.  At the end of the video, one of the ducks flies out.

Below the video is a picture of the waiting line to get inside.  Fancy does NOT like this and gets really agitated when Bella is sitting on top waiting to get inside.

Soon they will be done laying - each hen can lay around a dozen eggs.   Once they are done one of them will sit almost full time on the eggs and then the 30 day countdown to hatching will begin again!

A view of the ruckus from outside the nest.

It has become apparent that these duck fights will continue every day until both are done laying.

Fancy (the one with the "fancy" head) spends much more time in the nest than Bella (I had to name her something to keep them straight. Bella means 'beauty' in Italian and Latin - and really, both ducks are very pretty ladies.)  So the nest is Fancy's and Bella is the daily intruder - but, she really needs a place for her babies, too!  So we give her a pass and wish we could tell her that there will be more nest boxes available next year.

At any rate - the squabbles continue each morning.  Today, I decided to capture the view of what the duck fight looks like from outside the house.   As you can see, the nest is really rocking! If you listen closely, you can hear them squawking and banging around inside the nest.  At the end of the video, one of the ducks flies out.

Below the video is a picture of the waiting line to get inside.  Fancy does NOT like this and gets really agitated when Bella is sitting on top waiting to get inside.

Soon they will be done laying - each hen can lay around a dozen eggs.   Once they are done one of them will sit almost full time on the eggs and then the 30 day countdown to hatching will begin again!

Monster Cookies!

My new favorite recipe for a healthy snack.  

Tastes like a cookie, but filled with better ingredients. 

Mostly. Don't count the M&M's.  

Since our daughter is dairy free, so is this recipe.  It's also really easy to make this one gluten free if you so choose.  (Variation included below.)  And, because I think that if you are going to take the worthy effort to bake, you should always make extra - I would suggest one of the following:

- Make up an extra baggie or two of the dry ingredients.  Print up the recipe and put it inside the baggie.  Next time you are craving home baked goodness you are already partway done!

- Make up an entire addtional batch, but don't bake them.  Instead, place the unbaked monster cookies on a wax paper lined baking sheet.  No need for spacing - just pack them on there.  Freeze them until solidly frozen.  Pop them off and into a freezer bag.  Now you can easily bake one at time - or the whole batch - with total ease!  You'll be so glad you planned ahead.  

Yum. 

Wet ingredients

•   2 Eggs OR 1 egg and ½ cup applesauce
•   1/2 cup Peanut butter, creamy

•   1 tsp Vanilla extract

•   1 T. coconut oil, melted

•   1/2 cup almond milk (or regular milk if you choose).

Dry ingredients
•   2 cups Oats
•   1 T. Baking powder
•   1/4 cup Brown sugar, light
•   1/4 cup white sugar
•   ½ bag Chocolate chips*
•   ½ bag M&M’s (optional – leave off for DF)
•   1/4 tsp Salt
•   1 1/2 cup whole wheat or gluten-free flour

*DF Chocolate Chips are available made by Enjoy Life (I bought mine at Target) http://enjoylifefoods.com/our-food/baking-chocolate/chocolate-for-baking-dark-chocolate-morsels/ or Trader Joes semi-sweet chocolate chips are also DF!

Directions

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl and wet ingredients in another.

Combine.  If the mix is too dry to hold together in a cookie shape, add more almond milk (or milk) until it does. 
Scoop onto cookie sheet with the ¼ cup scoop.
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. 

Note: If you can't help but eat the dough - go ahead if you used the applesauce instead of eggs! :-)

We have a new tenant!

We have a new tenant (or two?) and so the cycle begins again.

I have read that it is not uncommon for a nest to be used twice in a season.  The key is cleaning it out between uses.

I'm not sure when the new hen moved in as I had turned the monitor off for awhile (no need to monitor NOTHING).  On a whim, I turned it back on on Monday and happened to catch a new mama! After she left her nest for the day, I went down to do some sleuthing and found there were already four eggs.

Plain head hen.

There seems to be one "main" duck and another "occasional" duck.  I really need to give them names - but I haven't come up with any good ones yet.  You can actually tell them apart as one has a very plain top-of-head and the other has a lighter, fancier top-of-head.   The plain hen was in the first picture I got, but the fancier hen seems to be there the most.  Hmm.

Fancy head hen.

Below you can see pictures of both ducks and a video of the two of them fighting for ownership of the nest.  It's no where near as dramatic as the first video a few weeks ago - but there is some loud squawking and feather pulling.  Seems that the fancier duck is the most upset by the intrusion.  Eventually she seemed to give in and just waited for the plain duck to leave (see picture).

Mid duck fight.

Things have settled down and the fancy head duck seems to have given in to the situation.

 
I'm going to keep checking in and counting eggs once-in-a-while so I know when they'll hatch.  Otherwise, we wait.  Enjoy.

We have a new tenant!

We have a new tenant (or two?) and so the cycle begins again.

I have read that it is not uncommon for a nest to be used twice in a season.  The key is cleaning it out between uses.

I'm not sure when the new hen moved in as I had turned the monitor off for awhile (no need to monitor NOTHING).  On a whim, I turned it back on on Monday and happened to catch a new mama! After she left her nest for the day, I went down to do some sleuthing and found there were already four eggs.

Plain head hen.

There seems to be one "main" duck and another "occasional" duck.  I really need to give them names - but I haven't come up with any good ones yet.  You can actually tell them apart as one has a very plain top-of-head and the other has a lighter, fancier top-of-head.   The plain hen was in the first picture I got, but the fancier hen seems to be there the most.  Hmm.

Fancy head hen.

Below you can see pictures of both ducks and a video of the two of them fighting for ownership of the nest.  It's no where near as dramatic as the first video a few weeks ago - but there is some loud squawking and feather pulling.  Seems that the fancier duck is the most upset by the intrusion.  Eventually she seemed to give in and just waited for the plain duck to leave (see picture).

Mid duck fight.

Things have settled down and the fancy head duck seems to have given in to the situation.

 
I'm going to keep checking in and counting eggs once-in-a-while so I know when they'll hatch.  Otherwise, we wait.  Enjoy.

Sad Mother's Day...

Duck house drama continues. Mother's Day had a sad ending for Skyler. We don't know where she is, but she hasn't been seen in days. Our duck TV has gone silent and a couple of us are super sad about it. It's unlike a mama duck to abandon her nest, so we have to conclude that something happened to her. I have been asked/begged/pleaded by my daughter to take the eggs in and incubate them (we have incubated duck eggs before...). But the sad truth is that it is too late.  Once a duck starts incubating her eggs, she only leaves them for around 30 minutes at a time to keep them warm. By the time we realized that she really wasn't coming back, the eggs had been left to cool for over 24 hours. I checked them the other day and they were already very cold and two were damaged. We candled one yesterday and saw no movement. 

It. 
Is. 
Just. 
Sad. 

Perhaps later today or tomorrow I will go empty the nest. It is possible it could still be used again this season. If it does, I'll let you know.  

RIP Skyler and babies.  😥

Maybe we'll start a turtle camera instead....