In Rich's Garden    "Ducks are home!" (below)  

                                            "Ashes to ashes."  (by a patient and gifted gardener)

    Video taken in  Rich Hart's garden.

                                                            It carries a message, "Keep trying!"

 

Ducks are home!

Well my place is a strange one. I grow unusual plants and have different animals.

A little on the ducks; everyone does their part to share the load in the up keep of such a big place. The ducks work on insect and snail control. About 5 years ago I had a lot of Iris plants. The snails completely devoured the flowers. I got some little ducks as they love snails. Over the years I now have very few snails. I haven’t put any poison for them in a long time now. If I allow the ducks complete run of the yard they can get quite messy. So they are mostly in the garden areas. There are many oak trees here; they drop tons of seed; which the ducks help to eliminate. When it comes to evening they are home in a flash!!

Gretchen will meet you at the fence to say hello. She is very friendly and always looking for a hand out. After all she is only a goat. She has lived here for many years (about 8 or 9) and rings her presence as you approach for she wears bells around her neck. Gretchen, when fresh, produces over a gallon of milk a day. Well, what the heck do you do with that much milk?????? You drink a lot and then some for the cats and dogs. Well, that’s still a lot of milk. Yes, so I make my own cheese. Some plain and some blue as well as some with chilly too. I have 1 acre, and there is no way that I could keep it in somewhat orderly. Gretchen’s responsibility is to mow the pasture. She works all year to keep it under control.

Then there are a bunch of cats; whom are always prowling for gophers. Or, they are looking for a hand out. I don’t use poisons to kill the gophers as they could get to the cats, too. For some of the poisons can go on to the next feeder!! In the past I have trapped about 50 gophers a year as well as what the cats can catch. But now the cats have reduced my yearly catch to about 12-15.