Just Ducky....

Now that we're back home, I am sort of assembling a few factoids and experiences of recent dining experiences here, but we’ll do that next time.  (This is a shabby thinly disguised attempt to entice readers to come back).

Loyal long time readers have heard versions of this story before, but there's a new twist so maybe it warrants retelling for newer readers and besides it’s driving me crazy…

A few years ago, one of our compassionate neighbors took in a family of baby ducklings when mom and dad somehow disappeared.  Of course she became “Mama” to the little brood, and somehow the imprint seemed to have stuck.  Anyway, ever since we came to the digs with the black (now gray) lagoon, springs brings not only renewed life, but at least two or three ducks.  Our neighbor says they are “hers” and that might be, but the damn things have abandoned her and adopted us.  So, every morning and at least three or four times during the day, they waddle into the yard and scour under the bird feeders for detritus and generally root up the ground. 

While annoying, that’s not so bad, but after a meal there’s nothing like a good swim or stroll on the pool deck, and if nature calls (as it seems to do incessantly) we just deposit in that nice cool body of water or wherever we happen to be.

And so over the years we have developed a little ritual.  I purchased a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, and when I’m home, I try to plink them.  I also have a shotgun, but I guess I am too “chicken” (ha ha) to make that mess.  Anyway, I come out the door, they look disgusted (if ducks can do that) and waddle toward the hill, and begrudgingly take flight when I shoot at them.  I occasionally strike them but I am sure it’s just an annoyance.  So we continue the dance until they leave in late summer.

This year brought a new wrinkle.   Somehow a male (not the one above) decided that our pool cover was its home.  Blue?

It would spend all day strolling around and sitting there (pooping at will), only leaving when the wild man from the house came with that thing that makes puffing noises.  Within a half hour it would be there again.  We figured maybe it had a screw loose in its pea sized brain and we nicknamed it “Daffy” for good reason.  It would pace and pace, never leaving the cover even though it was like a trampoline.  Here’s an early morning shot showing the overnight ramblings.

Notice the little hole (black dot) in the cover just above the left hand side of the left hand chair (the result of the sharp hoof of deer a couple of years ago), and the trail of visits.  We surmised that it was getting a drink there as the water level was getting high.

Well, the other morning I awoke just as it was getting light to a non-stop series of loud, rapidfire, distressed quacking.  Quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack…  I peered out the window and Daffy was nowhere to be seen.  So donning some sort of minimal clothing I trudged downstairs, opened the door to the patio, and still to the cacophony of the quacks.  No Daffy.  And then it became clear that it was coming from UNDER the pool cover. Oh NO!  I figured it must have toppled through the drinking hole.  I returned to the house to get on more substantial garb, but mercifully when I returned he had somehow freed himself sitting there like nothing happened

What an idiot.  One would think that the stupid creature would have learned from what was probably a harrowing experience, but no, the other day the same event occurred.  This time it didn’t extract itself so MFO and I peeled back the edge of the cover and hoped it had the intelligence (a word which probably is not appropriate) to get out.  We just went back in the house.  A funny thing, we have not seen Daffy since.  And there was no corpse under the cover, we checked.

And since the cover was off, we began the annual chore of uncovering and getting the pool serviceable,

ultimately turning green slime into clear, healthy, water suitable for humans (and swimming ducks).   God love chemicals.

And this year it took a little extra cleaning to erase the mementos of Daffy.. 

Maybe one of these days you will be invited over for a roast duck dinner…maybe not... but if you were you should be

DFD