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My husband and I were both from the Washington, D.C. suburbs. He was in Maryland and still in the metro area
when we met in 1990. I grew up in the Virginia suburbs until high school when my parents moved to the country.
Having spent 10 years in the country, I was intent on moving him out of the city from the day we met. It took several
years, but I finally did it. We moved to central Virginia. We chose a wooded lot for privacy. We lived in
a 1965 Shasta for well over a year while we built most of the original part of the house ourselves. That little
Shasta had no working appliances or heat. We did have temporary electrical with an extension cord into the camper.
And our well was already drilled. We got lucky and the water headed up in the casing to within 5 feet of surface level
so we could use a gas powered pump to fill several Rubbermaid containers every 3 days. So we took "showers" under
a 5-gallon bucket hung from a tree and did our laundry by hand. Every couple weeks we got a real shower at my little
brother's family's house and used the washer while we were there. Heat came from a tiny space heater that we ran
only while we were awake. We woke up to 19 F one morning! We didn't kill each other or wind up divorced, but we
came close many times. There aren't any "neutral corners" when your whole space is only 7 x 12. That experience
taught us to pay somebody to atleast get us under roof on the next construction projects of the house addition and the shop.
And my duck pens!
So, we had made our little place in the country and my city-raised husband decided it was time to get chickens
to have the complete "country" experience. Chickens are OK, but they just don't do much for me. When we found
ourselves looking at baby ducks in the feed store, I new I had to have some. Afterall, we seemed to have an endless
supply of water. (The lot we could afford is on a swamp! Okay, it's not usually that wet, but we have
a high enough water table that our drilled well can pump it's own water in a good year of rainfall.) And the husband
had his birds. Why not try something new?! Our bird housing has come a long way, and cost alot more than my husband
would want to spend! But I don't have any kids, so I do my best to house my animals the way I would want to be if I
were them. We have a small spring fed stream in the woods, but the flow is not enough to flush out a pond. So
the ducks have to settle for small artificial pools that get fresh water daily. They don't seem to mind. In fact,
my goose grew up with a refrigerator drawer as her first "pond" and will still stuff herself in it to take a bath! We
did the kiddie pool thing for a while, but cleaning it was a pain in my back and I always soaked my feet. My current
pools are cut-down livestock troughs set in the ground and equipped with drains for easy cleaning. My first real expansion
for the sake of the ducks was to fence in two yards, each with a pool, that totaled approximately 2500 sq.
ft.. My duck night pens are in between so the birds have access to shade and their food and drinking water, but still
have to run back and forth for swimming and foraging. I allow the leaves to accumulate along the fence so they
can rummage for bugs. They do seem to have a good time.
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| The "pool house" where feed and supplies are stored. |
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