The Not-so-Fabulous Mr Fox



Sad news to report, mes amis.  Mr Fox had Donald, one of our white ducks, for Christmas dinner.  He had Daisy the week before...and poor old Fatty, my black and white duck has disappeared as well.  I am so sorry about Fatty because we had him the longest and I did think he had his wits about him with regard to the fox. We still have six young white ducks but we are keeping them in the big shed until the weather gets better as the pond does freeze up and Mr Fox can walk over it.

 

 

 



Donald and Daisy Duck - no longer with us

Award

I am very pleased and proud to announce that my blog has made it onto the prestigious award list compiled by Lord Pudding of Yorkshire.  The Laughing Horse Blog Award is extremely coveted by the blogging community so it is indeed an honour to have made it onto the list for 2014, under the "Top East Yorkshire Blogger" category.

 

Madness!

Yesterday, 20 December, on our way to the outskirts of Hull via the A63, there was traffic queuing on the inside lane from the Humber Bridge to the next slip road and beyond. Do you know why?  They were queuing up to get to the Sainsbury's supermarket.  Can you believe people sit in their cars in a mile long queue waiting to get to a grocery shop?  Further along at another slip road, more queues, this time for a large Asda store.  What is this madness that takes over people at Christmas?  It's only one day of the year and the shops are all open again on Boxing Day. Nobody is going to starve.

I am quite sickened by all the greed and over consumption.  Usually I love the run up to Christmas and I normally have Michael Buble's Christmas CD playing on a loop in the house and in the car when I go out but this year I am a bit p***d off with it all.  Christmas stuff in the shops and being advertised on TV from October, disgusting Black Friday greed, hearing about people spending upwards of £300 each on small children who will not know what they have at the end of the day, or who gave it to them. I even heard about one young mother who is buying an ipad for a 5 year old because he decided to add it to his very long list at the last minute. The icing on the cake for me this year was seeing Cadbury's Crème Eggs being sold at the beginning of December.  Bloody Easter eggs!!

Don't get me wrong, I have always loved Christmas but on reaching the age I am at now, I'm just not sure I believe the Jesus story any more. 

Anyway, wishing you a very Happy Winter Solstice.  Let's welcome the sun back and look forward to spring.

Joyeux Noel!  See you on the flip side, as they say.

 

 

Kaledo Jewellery Sale

 

 

 

Just wanted to let you know that my very creative sister is having a big pre-Christmas sale in her Etsy jewellery shop - 50% off everything from Friday, 28 November until Monday, 1 December 2014. All the jewellery is designed and made with love by my sister, Kathryn.

 

The link to her Etsy shop is www.kaledo.etsy.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duck Flu and Scare Mongering Media Nitwits

 

 

 

I am SO sick of London media nitwits when they immediately start the scare mongering stories as soon as something like bird flu hits a small town in East Yorkshire.  These people won't even know where East Yorkshire is.  The fact is that sometimes, like all living creatures,  birds get sick. When they are cooped up in pens in their thousands, the sickness will spread.  Humans cannot catch flu from a duck.  It is not the H5N1 virus which is a man-made virus, developed in a laboratory by scientists (that will never be announced on Sky or BBC News). 

 

I can see what's going to happen.  The media frenzy will blow it all out of proportion again and suddenly the Christmas turkey industry will collapse because everyone will be buying a hunk of beef for Christmas dinner. The sad thing is that the masses believe what the brainwashing media tell them.  Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 today made me particularly mad today in likening the bird flu outbreak to Ebola in Africa.  There's something wrong with that man.

 

I am watching it all from the sidelines and I really hope that the majority of people realise that the media is deliberately spreading fear.  Christ, I hope Kay Burley from Sky News doesn't turn up in East Yorkshire!!

 

 

Silent Night

This beautiful video made me cry. It speaks for itself.  I am just sorry it's an advert for Sainsbury's. 

New Ducks on the Block

Well, blow me rags!  First of all we couldn't get white ducks for love nor money and now we have eight.  We acquired two fully grown ducks a couple of weeks ago.  Their previous owners called them Donald & Daisy (I know, not very original).  They are fully grown and very, very spoiled.  Daisy seems to just sit on her duck's a*se all day eating and sleeping while Donald goes for a wee swim with the guys.  I am slightly worried about the fox because we have seen it in broad daylight a couple of times but the ducks seem to sense it and stay in the pond, just sitting there in silence.

 

Donald and Daisy Duck

Yesterday we had a 'phone call from a friend who knew someone who was selling six white ducklings, so naturally we jumped at the chance.  They are 12 weeks old and still have some downy feathers so we are keeping them in a shed for a week or two until they get a bit bigger and lose their downy feathers.  They are still a bit grubby and scrawny (think they were just kept in a yard) but as soon as they get into the pond, they will be pristine white again. I will have to teach them about the fox before I release them.  I lost several lovely white ducks to a fox about 4 years ago and I was heartbroken because we had reared them from tiny little balls of fluff. Anyway, here's a first picture of them in the old shed.

 

 

Don't stand in the drinking water, you plonker!

I will keep you updated with their progress.  They are still a little bit bewildered but they'll soon settle down.