Protecting Ducklings & Dinner for Uncle Bo Whaley

Having  your own property with Backyard Wildlife is at times complicated...

It is heartbreaking to see some 40 ducklings vanish within days, from a long row of 13 to 3 and then 0...

Kwekkie the Mama duck, never gave up and started all over.

We have raccoons, hawks, owls, snapping turtles, foxes...

We both speak Dutch in video, but you can use the YouTube version and find the clickable points written below, with English text. 

We always sent my Parents this kind of written letters home, so they could see and hear us.

Kwekkie happily on our pond with 7 of her ducklings... I've seen that the big Eastern River Cooter did pull down one of the tiny ducklings while they were eating cracked corn near the pond's edge.

Eastern River Cooter ←click link

Yes, they occasionally eat other things then just aquatic plants.

Sure, they ate all our water lilies and lotus flowers too.

River Cooter Diet and Nutrition - older turtles may occasionally seek prey as well... ←click link

River Cooter Pseudemys concinna - diet ←click link

The species P. concinna is highly omnivorous and will eat anything, plant or animal, dead or alive. Diet seems to be determined by available food items. While some writers feel that this species of turtle will not eat meat, predatory behavior has been observed.

Yep, I've seen it with my own eyes!

Let's forget the nasty killing... No fun to do and while patrolling early morning at 6:00 AM that was not a happy start of the day for me.

But in the evening I cooked us a good dinner and dessert I still had plenty left from our High Tea two days earlier.

Uncle Bo Whaley and Delores viewing some of our photos in the veranda, after dinner.

Fond memories!

Miss my Uncle Bo and he's already 15 years in heaven...

The Polka Dot cotton pique skirt pants I'm wearing is one of my own sewing creations.

This was an empty whole milk plain yogurt container with cream on top...

Pieter's brother Toon, the ex Marine, shot through and next his brother Pieter (my husband) an ex Military guy shot through the very same hole!!!

Vedders are sharp shooters and don't mess with their wife either... 😏

Several years later, Pieter shot a huge snapping turtle that constantly knocked down the rocks from the island, that Pieter had built for placing the fountain inside.

On the video from Middle Georgia Magazine you could see it in working.

Related links:

Our Garden at the Time we had Access to Spent Mushroom Compost | video showing fountain on rock island on our pond

{White Waterlily Nymphaea odorata in our Pond} | showing the big mama turtle

{TURTLE} | Showing the big mama turtle

{Ducks in Our Pond} | previous post by me

{Our TURTLE KINDERGARTEN} | previous post by me

High Tea Prepared and Baked by Me | previous post by me and from which we had dessert left over...

Cleaning Our Pond and Fountain | previous post by me 

Marasmius sp.

 When working in our wood garden, husband Pieter found in the shade on a piece of old wood these lovely Marasmius sp.

Just thought to share these with you, as blogger friend Kim showed them in her lovely blog not too long ago: "Parasols" ←click on link for viewing her excellent photo.It no doubt is a Marasmius sp. and it looks very much like the Marasmius ramealis ←click on link for images.

Digging out Part of the Mountain of Dirt left under the House by Contractor

 Yep, after living and working in Indonesia, we still did continue doing consulting work but no longer than 2 or 3 weeks at a time.

So we finally since early May of 1992, could start working on home & garden...

Our contractor left us with a huge mountain of dirt UNDER THE HOUSE!

While we were working/living in Indonesia, he started constructing the house, which Pieter had designed, by making the drawings all himself.

Two levels on the driveway end and one level on the kitchen side.

The contractor did ask if we wanted a wine cellar but we said no, we don't need that.

Not realizing by not wanting that, he also bypassed any concrete flooring...!

Oh dear, when you're not physically present at times; big problems can arise that need to be dealt with later. 

Neither was there Internet for quick communication...

Always harder too, for correcting a problem like that later, as you barely can access the area for a fast and efficient excavation.

But we needed to get rid of the musty heap of 60 tons of dirt!

In August of 1991, I've dug out already a big section, as much as we needed to fill in for washed out dirt that Pieter rode then out in the wheelbarrow... See: The FIGHT of Growing Grass in Subtropical Georgia/USA ←click it.

This time, Pieter himself dug out a lot more, as we planned to build our pantry.

You can best watch this on YouTube, and use the clickable points that I've inserted and written about, below video.You can see the start of the digging and wheeling out, in the beginning, on a nippy cold February day (my Birthday) and next the construction of our pantry in progress.Having a dirty house, at least downstairs, I only kept up with the extra laundry and also captured our Garden Critters in-between filming Pieter's hard labor.Pieter indeed has been a worker bee; all his life and he's done it ALL.At the end of the video, you also see at clickable 38:07 after 20 days of labor, the completion of the construction of our pantry. At clickable 39:16 Pieter lets the viewers peak behind the added door from the pantry underneath the house, where the remainder of the mountain of dirt remained, till he dug it all out in 2004 for constructing our Rose Suite.With those 60 tons that came out, we could nicely grade our garden.At clickable 42:18 showing garden with wooden walkway, our wood trail on the left of our gazebo. You also get to see the ditches, dug for draining the swampy section! They were by then nicely clad with mosses!
Related links:The FIGHT of Growing Grass in Subtropical Georgia/USA | previous post Non Glamorous Wheelbarrow Job for Filling and Raising Swampy Parts | previous post{The Construction of Our Rose Suite - Part I} | previous post by me where Pieter dug out the 60 tons of dirt{The Construction of Our Rose Suite - Part II} | previous post by me