Note · August 19, 2026
The ducks mostly contribute ducks
A short accounting of what the animals on Redemption Square actually produce, which is not always what they were brought here to produce.
We keep a small mixed group out here: a couple of Great Pyrenees, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, and a pond full of fish that nobody has to feed.
The chickens contribute eggs. The ducks mostly contribute ducks.
The Pyrenees contribute nothing measurable and are the most important animals on the place. That's the part that took me a while to understand. Almost nothing here produces on the schedule I'd have written for it, and the things that matter most tend to show up in the column labeled "no output this quarter."
Which is a fair description of pastoral work too, now that I write it down. And of software, come to think of it — the maintenance that prevents the outage never appears in the release notes.
Build what needs building. Tend what needs tending. The tending is the part that doesn't photograph well.