Quick update on Taffy the duck! She has continued to sit on the eggs, departing every evening for about 30 minutes to fly off somewhere. She has given no sign at all that anything was happening in the nest. Then this morning, I happened to glance out the window at her and baby ducks all over the place! I cant believe how fast it happened and how easy it would have been to miss them completely. Within an hour of me seeing them, she hustled them off to somewhere else. I'm very excited that she was successful. I was worried that all the activity on the patio would make her abandon the nest but I think she is used to us or something. I will add pictures later.
UPDATE: Its May 2019 and she is back again. I am not sure how long ducks live, but Taffy really likes this spot. We are expecting baby ducks any day now.
In other gardening news, the cold and wet weather has been relentless. I finally was able to squeeze in a day at the allottment when we had a brief break in the weather. I got my area fenced off from the birds and the thieves. I used to time left to plant two kinds of peas, purple cauliflower and rubra kale in. I also got in the red romaine and seeding three types of beets. I was hoping to get back there tonight but its raining again. My remaining seedlings are not looking very good at the moment and really need to get in the ground. I am pretty sure the tomatoes got exposed to herbicide drift, some of their leaves are looking very unhappy. My onion seedlings are a total loss as is the peppermint celery.
The basil seedlings are looking fantastic of course the 35 degree nights are not at all conducive to happy basil so they will need to continue to wait for now. They are saying a few more days of below average weather and then hopefully next week we can go back to seasonal. At least I havent needed to water!
