Christmas Dinner

[Lou Barron]

In the last couple of weeks there as been two ducks nearly every day in the late afternoon come and paddle around the front garden .
the other afternoon two of my grand kids came up for dinner then one of them Jessica said to me that there were two ducks sitting on the driveway so i said to her take some bread out of the bin and feed them so the get fat and we can have them for our xmas dinner she looked at me and said grandad you would not do that would you i said not really but i would have done that years ago but then on the other hand iwould have eaten the bread first

[Peter F Chard]

#1 Hi Lou, Your yarn reminds me of my childhood in Fleetwood during the war years. Someone had the bright idea of buying some goose chicks at the beginning of the year and fatten them up on food scraps ready for Christmas Day and our lunch. About 20 or so of these chicks were purchased and fattened as planned -- during the year these birds became great pets to us kids, they chased all the stray dogs away when we played soccer, the gangs from other streets were no match for our geese, they even chased our mothers when they came to drag us indoors at bedtime. They even came to school with us !! However, as Xmas approached and the impending executions of our pets no one could be found to do the dreaded deed and so they were sold to a local butcher, and everyone bought chickens instead for Xmas lunch that year. Regards Peter in NZ.

[Doc Vernon]

We get Ducks all the time here Lou funny we never saw any when you were here!
They come down the drive to eat!
Lovely Birds! (Ducks that is LOL)
cHEERS

[Captain Kong]

I get lots of ducks coming into the garden, the best ones are thw wild geese loads of them in Spring time. BUT the Immigrants have a habit of killing and eating them.
Cheers
Brian
Here they are outside the house.

[Doc Vernon]

Our Ducks here are not quite as Big Capt!
You get a better Xmas Dinner LOL!
cHEERS

[John Pruden]

when the kids were little we took them to butlins{never again} anyway the place was full of Canada geese ? sunday morning I went for a paper everyone still in their bunks I put a line of bread right up to the oven door in the little chalets one was pecking the bread I put inside the oven I woke barb up she was screaming I said to her this butlins is great even the sunday dinner comes to you she did not find it funny but we still laugh at it today?jp

[John Arton]

When I was about 4 or 5 yrs old we lived for a year in a farm cottage, it had no electricity, no heating and an outside toilet. The farmer bred ducks, geese and hens.
The ducks would often come into the house for a look see and we often had duck eggs as sometimes they laid their eggs in the garden. He had a large flock of geese that used to charge towards anyone who ventured towards the house and farm. My brother and sisters were frightened of these geese so it was job to escort them from the lane outside through the geese to the house. One day I was wandering around the farm and saw the farmer in one of the outbuildings plucking chickens and getting them ready for sale. He had a line of them hung up by their legs so being the helpful lad I was/am I decided to help him pluck these chickens. When I started plucking the feathers from the nearest chicken it suddenly started flapping around and making a terrible noise. The farmer explained to me that if you hang a live chicken up by its legs it goes to "sleep" and he had all of these ready hung up upside down, ready to have there necks wrung prior to them plucking. When I saw him wringing the neck of the next one to be plucked I "chickened" out of helping him pluck anymore chickens and went duck egg hunting instead.
rgds
JA

[happy daze john in oz]

. BUT the Immigrants have a habit of killing and eating them.
Cheers
Brian
Here they are outside the house.[/QUOTE]
May I suggest that if they continue to kill them for eating you set up a stall selling packets of Sage and onion stuffing. You could make a killing yourself.

[David Williams]

Is that lovely to look at or lovely to eat ?.
Dave Williams

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Lou.
Here in Cooma we have ducks breeding in the local Cooma Creek which is right in town, the council have two Duck crossing signs up. many times held up with cars stopped while the mother takes her ducklings across the road. Personally I don't like duck, to strong a taste. When I was about six we had a pet duck that used to round up our chickens into the shed for the night, don't know what happened to it don't think we ate it.
Cheers Des