The Time We Ran A Duck Spa

Do you find yourself doing things that you never thought you would do?  As I get older I do more of these things.  One of which was, I never thought I would give a duck a ten minuet Epson salt foot soak every day for fourteen days.

One of our Peking ducks, Pearl, began limping and after examination of her foot, I decided that she had bumble foot.  Bumble foot is basically a foot infection that if not treated could possible cause death.  You can read more about it HERE.  Her infection had not reached the severity of the link I posted and surgery was not a route that I wanted to go.

I secluded daisy in a dog kennel.  She had food, water & shelter.  The best part of Pearl's stay was when she came in the house for a 10 minute Epson salt foot soak.

Now, if I never thought that I would have a duck in my bath tub, you can imagine that my husband never thought he would have a duck in his bath tub.  After two weeks the area that I thought was bumble foot had healed and Pearl returned to her friends.  Unfortunately Pearl seems to be predisposition to foot problems.  Several months later she started limping again.  This time I saw nothing on the bottom of her foot.  So this I put her in the kennel with food and water for a few days (to restrict her walking) and when I let her out she was fine, no limping.  So was this bumble foot? I don't know for sure, but I DO know that Pearl enjoyed her time at duck spa.

What questions or story's would you like to hear about our home stead?

Adventures in Homesteading - The Back to Eden Garden

We are putting in our first fall garden & decided to use the "Back to Eden" Method.  We had orginially planned to have the garden area tilled and then the mulch delivered, but the man I found on craigslist appeared to have a drug problem and that did not work out.  So we went to plan B.  The rail road ties (30) were delivered on a Thursday & 75 yards of finely shreddedmulch were delivered on Friday. 

We originally thought we could spread all 75 yards by hand.  We were wrong.  We spread out a paper that helps prevent weeds.  After some further reading and since we were waiting for the man to come and spread the mulch we sprayed the majority of the weeds with vinegar.  This took a lot of time and it 1/2 way worked.  I think it works best on walk way areas, and actual weeds, not grass.

 

The day came and we eagerly watched them spread our mulch.

 

The guys were very nice and worked much faster than we ever could have

 

 

We shortened the garden from the original size we had planned on, we decided this was still a REALLY BIG garden.

 

 

Over the next few days we watered the mulch to get it good and wet.  The back to eden idea is the much holds more water.  And its fine shredded so its a mixture of wood and organic material

Micah is an expert water.



 

I planted beans, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, radishes and turnips.  Everything has sprouted except the carrots.  When it cools a bit more I will plan the lettuces.

 

 

 

So far I am pleased with this method.  I have noticed:

1) The grass that grows up around the sides (that wasn't fully covered with dirt)  is mostly dead at the bottom and pulls out fairly easily, I pull a bit each day.

2) the fresh grass that grows in the mulch pulls up very easy from the root we pull about 5 or so pieces a day when we go out to check the new growth.