Oh hello, There's really nothing cuter than a box full of ducklings, unless its a tiny flock of them roaming around your orchard weaving in and out of the motherwort forest under the protective scrutiny of mama duck. They're about ten days, maybe two weeks old. Takes about that long for the mom to let them out into the open. There are eleven of them and methinks more to come as there has been a whole lot of boinking going on through the late spring months. Why even now the hornyness continues in wild displays of porkitude characterized by things like over the back beak to wing stabilizing tactics and wild wing flappage while threading the needle. It all takes place in mere seconds which in duck time is the equivalent to how long it takes me to remember what a sex life was like. I called Doc Bebockboc and nurse Sally to have them come have a looksee. He said that if they're alive and well and out the nest, chances are that most will make it to maturity. Nurse Sally said to just approach them as though I was walkin' tippy toe on thin ice and talkin' in whispers like they was some biker nazi lookin' dude at a bar who's asking for my phone number. That actually happened to me once, so I knew exactly what she was talking about. Here's what passes for fun around the Rancho. Fill up a one by three foot seedling starter tray with water and pull up a chair. Before long those little ducklettes will find their way to the medium they were born to and hoist themselves up over the side of the tray to test the waters. Its not so deep as to keep them from standing up, but deep enough that they can retract their perfect little webbed feet and test their floatation and aquatic maneuvering skills. Roll up a phatty and take a couple of hits and accept the fact that you have nothing better to do and you've got yourself a perfectly fullfilling waste of time. Why nurse Cassie almost went into a swoon upon seeing them for the first time. I just looked at her and asked, "first ducklings?" "Oh my, yes", she said, fanning her face with her hand.. We've got a good crew on hand at the moment and getting a lot of work done. The jovial Jeremiah can't seem to help himself when it comes to being selflessly imbued and generous with his skills. Not for nothin' but if he keeps it up i'm gonna have to think of ways to piss him off just to make me appear less strident. The no till areas are looking great owing to the care and nurturing of "garden girl"  Noemie, newly arrived from France where she is attending agricultural college and is our latest prize on the wheel of fortune that is the w.w.o.o.f. program. She is tending to the chickens and ducks as well as watering and prettifying the vegetable gardens. Her english is weak but her joi de vivre is strong and what a lovely presence. Fortunately my pals over at Greenleaf Farm have a frenchy wwoofette on board as well, giving us limitless excuses to get together and swap lies over good food and drink. Having boxed my ears like the mercurial bantam weight that she is, nurse Lindsey has gotten through the inch of lead surrounding my common sense. Her web design ideas and skills have finally trumped my need to be the surly, insitant individualist, hell bent on building it My way which would have caused approximately 82% of the people who browse the world weird web to fall to the floor in paroxysms of laughter over viewing my messterpiece. "He used comic sans as a font fer' chrissake. What a maroon." We're respectable enough to be up on the web now with some spit and polish to come. There will be a slide show of my trip to Tiahuana in 73' because there's just no way to put such acts of animal husbandry into words. Go give us a hit at www.ranchorelaxzo.com . The mindorrhea will be archived under the blog tab and i'll probably be posting a page or two about this and that. We're working with vertical spaces these days. Comes a time when fencing takes on more tasks than just keeping the deer and pigs out. Putting down some eighteen inches of straw mulch about two feet out from the fence kills off the grass and weeds in about ten days. Takes a bit longer for the gnarlier roots to break down. Once a couple of weeks go by, we take our bean or pea starts and move away some of the mulch, dig a puka, plant the legume, water it and tuck it in with straw. Stays nice and moist, inhibits all but the most tenacious weeds, looks cool and lasts for many months at which time a cosmetic layer of four or five inches serves to keep the area weed free and damp. Looked like we were going to get a free mimi wheat crop out of some of the straw which was sprouting grain plants left and right from some residual seed, but the rodents had their own ideas about dealing with this unexpected gift. I'd enter one of the gardens anticipating that the plants i'd been watching for weeks would be swolen with wheat berries and every seed head was chopped off with a mini mulch pile of chaff surrounding the barren stem. Brash little fuckers. Then i got to thinking that they do about the same thing as me during the course of the day. Browse around spocking out the best grinds and harvesting them at their tender juiciest. I know for a fact that smartypantz was eyeballing the strawberries i picked today. She missed out because I got there first, had protected my territory and reigned in the bounty. Rats and mice are just better at it than me. Raticus Maximus, i slaughter thee with respect in my heart. We've also got lilikoi climbing the trees that can support their weight and beans climbing the papaya trees. Throw in a few melons and squash at the base of the papaya trees and you've got the trifecta. I am constantly reminded of how many layers of space there are to work with and how many plant guilds are begging to be tried. Lets see, what else? Oh yeah, we've got some Jatropha curcas seed coming in from India. It is a drought tolerant bush that produces seed very well suited to the extraction of bio diesel fuel. My thought was that it would be a good understory plant in the fruit tree orchards. We just got a 55lb. bag of organic cacao powder so the froozie crew will be in full swing pumping out the fruity treats as well as another batch of chocavopousse. Our first round of cocobanapousse should be coming up soon since we just cut a few stalks and are itchin' to try out this new treat on the unsuspecting public. And so it goes with nary a dull moment, routines that don't get old and a never ending series of natural soundings that speak in silence to the heart. Roger that. The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, jp