The Joys and Woes of Caring For Your Animals

I know many of my readers have animals in their homes or on the farm that are just as much a part of the family as the humans.  They're well cared for, loved and enjoyed.  Some folks may see that as spoiling them unnecessarily.  Not me.  My animals and pets are a great source of joy and entertainment for me (yes, I'm easily entertained *laugh*!) and I find a great sense of satisfaction in caring for them and even spoiling them!

As all pet owners know, though, there are times when caring for them is not so pleasant... cleaning up after them after they've been sick or have had an accident, scooping poop from the litter box, cleaning the chicken coop (which is on today's To-Do list) or stalls, well, you get the idea.

The other day it was time to clean the ducks pool.  It's not really a nasty job although, the water does have an odor when up close, but it's more tedious than it is nasty or unpleasant.

Anyone care for a dip in the pool?

What?  You'll pass this time!  Where is your sense of adventure, hahaha!  I guess I'd better clean it out then.

I use this handy little pump thingy that I hook up to the water hose, turn the water on and it pumps the icky water out.

The tedious part is that the hose I use is on the faucet for the garden which is in front of the chicken/duck run.  So, I'm going in and out of the chicken run several times during the pumping process.

The black hose is fed through a trap door and empties into the garden.

Then, I run around to the garden so that I can fill up a bucket to water other parts of the garden where the hose doesn't reach.  Back and forth, moving quickly because the water is constantly flowing.

Time to turn the water off.

At this point, I disconnect the pump, tilt the pool on its side and hose the mud out.  It's unbelievable how much mud gets in there.

I fill the pool back up and admire my tedious work!

I figured since I had the camera with me already, I would sit in the run again and see if the ducks would go for a swim in their clean pool.

They were all huddled up in the corner keeping their eye on me as I sat on the foot of the Chiki Hut right in front of their pool.

And this is what I saw for about ten minutes.  I was growing tired of waiting so I turned my attention to the chickens who were venturing out of the coop finally and getting nosy.

I realized that the ducks were inching forward towards the pool since I was ignoring them.  I decided to pretend to go to sleep so I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and was very still.  I'd open my eyes just a tad to see one brave duck take a couple small steps forward.  Once one moves, they all follow.  I didn't dare move to take any pictures of this long processional to the pool.  It took another ten minutes or so for the ducks to walk about twelve feet.  They sure weren't going to rush into this!

And then finally, my 'nap' paid off and the ducks were enjoying their clean pool!  The long wait of getting some photos of the ducks swimming in their not-so-new-pool was over!

Do you think they're enjoying it?!

It amazes me how they 'stand' on the water!

The old saying is true, water literally rolls right off the ducks back.

Happy ducks!

Tidal wave!  (I felt this one, by the way!)

Ah, the joy of watching the ducks swim in their clean pool!  So worth all the work in the end.

Till next time,