1 year old

June marks the one year anniversary of the babies coming to Hydrorancho. I'm not sure how old they were when I got them but they arrived here early June.

As I write this they have discovered the neighbours house so they are all sitting down there.

Last year the neighbour got the six ducklings to keep his other duck George company. George had been hanging out with our chickens but longed the companionship of other ducks. I also think the neighbour planned to eat a few of the . Anyway someone here saw them we asked the neighbour if we could raise them for him until they were old enough to go and live at the damn with George. The deal was I'd get to keep two for my efforts.

As time went on it got harder to choose which two I was going to keep as I realised I wanted to keep them all. One day I broke it to the neighbour that I wanted to keep them all and that I was sorry. He understood and he said "they're your babies".

So much has happened in the past year at Hydrorancho. We lost George and Grey Bitch, Speedy joined the crew, the ducks have a new house, we've lost nearly all of our chickens to snakes and now we're faced with the prospect of having to kill a rooster.