On Friday I went out to the garden to pick some snow peas for dinner. My entry into the yard caused a hasty exit by some smaller creature and I decided to investigate. A small picket fence separates the garden from a strip of dirt behind the garage where we store potting soil and old terra cotta pots. I expected when I peered over the fence to see a cat or perhaps one of the feral chihuahuas that prowl the neighborhood (I kid you not) but what met my gaze was... a duck.
Huh.
More rustling. The duck has friends. Little friends. Lots of little friends.
Ah.
So, a mama duck - a mallard, I’m fairly certain - either laid her eggs in an old terrarium behind my garage or laid her eggs someplace she later judged to be unfit and moved her days old chicks to my backyard. Ten of them, for the record. I find it unlikely that a duck could be sitting on a clutch of eggs for 20 days in my backyard unbeknownst to me and my family, nor do I see moving ducklings this small any reasonable distance on foot to be a feasible feat, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s here are ducks. A great deal of them.
My first instinct was simply to back off and let mama do her thing, but it’s really hot here right now. 100º easy. And she laid these babes in an old glass terrarium with no padding and no water. And then she made herself scarce. What now? The phrase “sitting ducks” comes to mind.
So we took out a dish of water.
And waited.
Did some research on ducks.
And waited.
Went down to the feed store and talked to some folks.
Came back with a water dispenser and a bag of duck feed.
Mama’s been gone for a full day and half now, so far as I can tell. The hatchery that is my backyard has received an upgrade in the way of shredded newspaper to keep the ducks dry. Past midnight last night Shawn rolled over in bed and looked at me. “I’m worried about the ducks.” A few minutes later he had pulled on boots and trudged out into the night. Hotel Duck now has a fortified screen roof to keep out peckish stray cats looking for duck dumplings.
This can’t be a permanent solution. (“Ducks eat snails,” Shawn says.) We aren’t a farm. We have a small tract house and smaller backyard without a pond (“Until we haul Luke’s kiddy pool out,” I point out.) Of course they’ll have to get their water feathers in first.
Oh dear.
I fear that I’ve just fallen into a cosmic game of duck-duck-goose and I think I’m sitting in the mush pot.
