On top of the stress, some bastard stole 17 of my ducklings.
I am, as you can expect, rather angry about this.
The ducklings were here and accounted for at 4.30pm when we got home from Isaac’s psych assessment and I couldn’t see them at 7pm last night when I was on the phone to Mum. At the time, of course, I just assumed that the mother had put them and herself to bed already, and I filled up the water containers, didn’t bother doing a full head count and went back inside.
This morning when I woke up to a frost, I figured I’d best check to make sure everything had survived the night.
Outside, I found 3 ducklings with one mother and one mother with no babies at all.
A quick walk around the paddock found one duckling in a nest that they’d slept in, obviously suffocated – this duckling belonged with the 3 other live babies. (How can I tell you ask? They were slightly different colours, because of a 2 day age difference). Obviously that mother had slept indoors with her 4 babies.
A long slow walk around the paddock turned up nothing.
A detailed examination of all the water containers, the blackberries, the septic tank, the marshy back corner and ALL the surrounding paddocks (risking electrocution and plover attacks), plus the sides of the road and the paddock across the road, showed nothing.
17 ducklings, vanished.
Last night, as I cooked dinner, Maisy barked at the window. We ignored it, being busy, figuring she was barking at the cat. Now, we assume she was barking at whoever was in the yard, stealing ducklings. Cars and people stop at the front of our house all of the time, so it’s not something we pay attention to anymore.
Moral of the story? Always check when the dog is barking. Always.
I’ve been on the phone to the police this morning who agree with me, that losing 17 is definitely theft, as a hawk or snake would only take 1-2, and not 17 in a 3 hour time frame. And if they’d died of anything else, I would have found remains.
I am so upset. They’re only 4-5 days old and so so fragile still. They won’t survive if they’re separated from each other and they’re probably already doing badly without their mother. I’m worried about them, hand rearing ducklings is hard work. The RSPCA has also been notified, so that they know to ring me if ducklings start arriving there.
On top of the duckling theft, we had a major frost that wasn’t forecast on my weather forecast and I lost nearly the entire contents of my garden.
All of my tomatoes are dead, or dying. I didn’t even get any to ripen on the bush this year. I’ll save what I can for green tomato chutney and for ripening inside, but still. That’s over 100 tomato plants dead.
All my pumpkins died. I was able to rescue 3 half grown pumpkins off the vines, but all the vines are dead.
All of the zucchini. All of the corn, the basil, the cucumbers.
Everything.
You know how sometimes it just feels like too much? Yeah, this is too much. The stuff in my garden was for preserving and bottling, to get us through winter, on a tight budget. The ducklings would have been sold at the growers market in a few months.
I am Not Impressed.
Comments
34 responses to “Sometimes, people are utter bastards. So is the weather.”
That’s awful.
The added stress of losing so much food and potential income would have me in tears for days and the increased worry wouldn’t end till we’d gotten through the winter.
I really feel for you. I’m so sorry this happened.
We can get through food wise and money wise, but it will just be tighter than I wanted it to be. On the upside, the frost didn’t kill the kale or the collard (although the caterpillers tried to).
That really sucks. We had some chicken rustling going on in Reservoir as well. It made the local papers. I also accidentally rustled a chicken myself – http://www.reservoirdad.com/reservoir-dads-ramblings/185-most-popular-post-2010.html
Your post made me laugh.
I don’t understand some people. I’m so sorry. xx
Thanks, I’m really upset about it. And angry. Who steals ducklings?!
Oh!! MAN!! I have my angry eyebrows on for this news..what the hell !! i have a huge thing about people not keeping their hands to themselves. got any suspects ? i do think you are correct in assuming they won’t be cared for properly. i’m sorry. We were just twitter bonding over the ducks !!
I have a thing about it too – breed your own ducks if you want ducklings!
People. Jesus.
I am so so sorry hon…………..that sucks all round!!!
It does, really suck.
I am so sorry that you have lost so much 🙁 I hope the mongrel that took the ducklings gets their comeuppance! It would serve them right.
I hope they bring them back!
Oh hugs. That is just galling about the ducklings, people can be such f*ckwits. Sorry about the garden as well, I know only too well the pain of losing the lot, its so depressing.
I’m still in a bit of shock that someone would even take them, you know?
And yeah, the really sad thing is, even if the pumpkins and stuff reshoot from the base, it’s too late in the season here to really get anything out of them.
It is a real shock when you lose something so unexpectedly like that, not to mention the grief at losing the little duckling and the frustration because it was such a brainless thing to do, I mean their stupidity and ignorance is so obvious. And that kind of stuff always seems to happen when you’ve got 1000 other things on as well.
With my garden, I ignored it for a good three weeks – just could not bring myself to do anything out there, and then after I got inspired again by the few things clinging on to life, I dived into Autumn/Winter plantings. It always amuses me that people call ‘living off the land’ a ‘simple life,’ there is nothing simple about it whatsoever.
🙂
Yep, we’ll be doing our autumn planting this week too I think, lots of lettuce and beetroots and carrots. Plus broad beans if I can find some bulk packs, just for the soil conditioning they do!
Very devastating to lose the ducklings I hope they are ok I’d be in tears. Your garden too …words fail me.I can’t imagine how you must feel right now.
I’m not in tears, but I’m pretty upset. I can only hope they’re okay. And the garden, just, wow. I can’t believe I haven’t gotten one single red tomato. The growing season down here has been crazy – we were still getting frosts in December.
Sometimes People Are Utter Bastards So Is The Weather…
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Sorry to hear about the ducklings.
Seasons have been crazy everywhere this year.
The Diggers Club sells seeds in bulk packets for market gardeners. A packet of 500 broadbean seeds from them is $18.50 in my catalogue, which is quite old. If you go to their website, http://www.diggers.com.au you can check the catalogue online and order online too. They have several catalogues, you need the seed sowers mail order catalogue. You can have the catalogue sent to you as well.
I’m blown away – who steals ducklings? I mean they’re cute and all, but they’re not toys. I think part of the problem is that for so many people gardens and poultry are hobbies, they can’t see that it’s really important. Sorry about the gardens, that would have been a great buffer.
that just sux big time. I hope you find another way to make a tight winter a little more comfortable xx
That’s terrible! If I recall, we had a category 1 cyclone cross the coast of north Queensland on the morning of Christmas at about 6.30am. The first alert was only issued at 10pm the night before (after we were all well and truly asleep) and then we woke up in the morning to tree branches slamming on the roof and no power. Thankfully not so too severe as it was only a cat 1, but now we’ve had cleanup from a Cat. 4 Yasi to deal with too, now. Glad to be down in the ACT studying so I can’t involve myself too much in the cleanup 😉
Terrible to hear of the ducklings being stolen. Just awful. 🙁
ARGH some people just… UGH. Goes back to what we were saying about ethics – some people have them, some apparently just, don’t.
*hugs*
That is just low. And as for the vegies, I think we need to sue the weather bureau.
Smootches for you, my love.
That is truly horrible 🙁 I’m so sorry.
I thought they might have been eaten too…
Hmmm….
thats so sad..
horrible
what kinda people steal duckling.. grr
hugs to you
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I’m so sorry. That’s too much bad news in one go. I’m thinking of you – not that that helps really. Dammit.
I can’t believe someone stole your ducklings. Unbelievable. Some people are scum.
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