I just looked out the kitchen window a few minutes ago and saw Bossy and Nipper swimming around and up-ending in the pond. It's freezing this morning and I thought to myself, "how do they do that?" But they seem quite happy floating around doing their morning routine as usual.
It's just started to get cold on our part of the earth. The summer was long, hot and dry! Now it's autumn and the feeling in the air has made the change, finally.
This is my first year of being a duck owner and carer. All this with ducks started last September for me. I was about to come in from the garden late one afternoon and I heard a loud cheeping sound. When I looked out to see where it was coming from I saw this little figure scooting across the grass on the other side of the road. "That looked like a duckling" I said to myself, and went out to take a closer look. It sure was a tiny little duckling all by itself crying and running in under some trees that were hanging down low to the ground. I bent down to get a closer look and in a flash the little guy scooted right past me and took off, still crying, to the next front yard and hid under some more bushes. Well I followed and he had nowhere else to go so I reached in and gently got him in my hand and snuggled him into my chest. All the while he was cheeping and beeping and crying for his lost family.
I had been thinking about getting some ducks for quite a while. I had an incling that me and ducks
would do great together and they would do good work for me around the yard and I would look after them really well and give them a happy safe place to live. So, now that I had found this little guy I straight away started thinking that this might be the beginning of my duck family. All I had to do now was take him inside and let my wife in on my "plans." You see, Val had never been too keen on the idea of ducks as pets, coz they're so "messy and smelly and noisy."Well, I entered the kitchen area with my new found friend well hidden in my hands and went up to Val and our son Matt was visiting as well. When I showed them my little treasure I just found their reaction was suitably one of "what the?" If you have ever watched an episode of Rove on Australian TV you know about those "what the?" moments!
So, you see that was the very beginning of my duck family. Of course, once Val saw this cutest little iddy biddiest duckling in my nice kind warm soft hands she started to go all gooey and so I quickly saw my opportunity to milk the moment. Yes, this was finally my very real oportunity to convince her that having ducks would actually be really fun and not a noisy, smelly, messy experience at all!
Well, the very next morning we sat at the table and guess who was doing the hand feeding? Yes, Val was in luuve, and I was in luck and about to get my duck family started!
This is some video I took on that first morning of looking after our little rescued duckling, who I would later give the name "Happy"
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