Spring, Flowers and Wildlife

Now one of my favorite types of days is where you do not have to worry about getting somewhere by a certain time, so when you open your garage door and see a turkey, you can take the time to try to see it and get a picture of it--oh, and of course try to feed it. Yesterday was one of those days and yes, when I opened my garage door there was a turkey right there. Hazel and I tried to get a good look at it, but it ran away. We left it some cracked corn, but it was a few houses away by then and I do not think it came back.

Then today after I picked Hazel up from school, we ran to AC Moore for some craft supplies and stopped at KMart for some plants. It was unusually warm here in Massachusetts (20 degrees higher than average) so we spent the afternoon outside. Hazel could not wait to plant some flowers.

We bought an English daisy and three six-packs of pansies. We also bought some lettuce, sugar snap peas, basil and some tomato plants (which we will keep inside for another couple of months). 

Doing the Gardener Dance

Hazel planted the pansies with a little help from me, but actually did most of it herself!

We decided to plant some in a pot on the front steps and some around a tree in the front. Then Hazel also planted some in her garden (my old garden that we are letting her play in). I planted the vegetables there as well since Daddy hasn't dug me my new garden yet. 

While planting in the back we had a sure sign of spring. Our ducks returned. They came up looking for food, but when we moved to get them some, they flew back in the water.

We threw some of the cracked corn into the water for them. Then after dinner I looked out and saw two males. Now we had this problem last year. Some other male comes and attacks the female trying to mate with her. Her mate does his best to chase him away, but it can takes days until he leaves them alone. Anyway, I went out to see what was going on. The extra male flew away, but he started flying circles as I kept seeing him come back. I think he was checking to see if I was gone yet. Then he landed back in the water and went after the female. She kept trying to hide in the tunnel (the creek goes underground on our property), but he followed her. Her mate chased him out and down the creek by the bend where their nest is. She came out and I stood very still waiting to make sure she was safe. She must have decided I was safer than the water, because she came up and sat about 7 feet from me. I stayed for awhile and then slowly moved far around her to check on the males. The attacking male flew away and her mate same down to where she was and came up. They stayed there for quite some time. It looked like she was sleeping some of the time and he was guarding her.

The last time I looked out, they were gone--I'm guessing back to their nest. All I cared about was they were safe and she was not being attacked/raped. (I know it is natural for ducks, but I don't think the female should be attacked when she doesn't want to be with him and she is happy with her mate.) So that was our duck drama and our fun day outside! Tonight the rain will come and bring the temperatures down again, but at least we got one day outside in the warmth.