I have to take a quick moment to just say: I love these darn ducks.

Steve doesn’t care for them, and he definitely hasn’t kept his sentiments to himself.  But before you start worrying that the poor ducks are are waddling around unloved and unappreciated, don’t, because I think they’re my favorite animals around here.

And what’s not to love?

Let’s start with the way that they’re always playing, especially when there’s water around:

 

Then there’s the fact that in their world, there is no such thing as inclement weather:

Or a time that’s too late at night:

And, even better, they provide us with some of these:

Which means that our homestead calendar is starting to look like this:

At the beginning of the year we started logging in all our expenses and yields right on our main calendar, so we can have a good idea of what has been costing us what. That way, we can figure out the best way to limit our expenses and give us a more concrete idea of what’s working and what isn’t. Since adding in the Appleyards, we’ve been getting 2-3 eggs every day. It’s been depressing seeing so much ‘expense’ and not much yield. Now with laying ducks, we have yields to log every day!  Granted, 2-3 eggs a day isn’t a huge yield, but it’s certainly better than the zero eggs we were getting before.

So, next time Steve mentions how much he doesn’t like the ducks, feel free to ignore him. They’ll be sticking around!