Happy Mother’s Day, Mama Duck

We’ve had a resident duck couple around our house for about a month now, always together, waddling around as duck couples do.  But I hadn’t seen them lately, and I was getting a little worried about them.

So today, while I’m working in the yard, I hear the smallest “Quack,” and I look up immediately, wondering if it’s Mr. & Mrs. Duck.  Well……it was Mrs. Duck, WITH

                      10 WADDLING LITTLE BABIES FOLLOWING HER!

When she saw me (from afar), she quickly moved along, and the babies followed as fast as their little webbed feet could take them, but not before I could get some (blurry) pictures of them.

Little did I know the drama that was about to unfold…

 I LOVE this picture.  Doesn’t she look like a human mom, saying to her little ones, “Wait here quietly,” while she keeps an eye on me?  How many times have WE human moms said that?! :)

Off they scurried…behind the berry cart…

                                          …through the landscaping, behind bushes…

                                                                                             …and up our hill.

As I return to my gardening, I hear a tiny “Peep…Peep…Peep.”  Did one get left behind?

I listen more closely, and to my horror, one has fallen into a water pipe in our yard! The one that I’ve called about because I was afraid a human might hurt themselves there.  I try reach him with my hand, but the pipe is only 3 inches wide and I can only get as far as the lower part of my elbow.  My husband has joined me by now, and he’s off to the garage to get a flashlight, while I run to the kitchen to get tongs—L – O – N – G tongs.  We try the tongs…no luck.  He had been trying to come up, but couldn’t quite make it…but now he’s even lower—about

                 3 feet

                              D

                                O

                                   W

                                       N

I call our neighbor, Debbie, who quickly gets another neighbor, Don, to join us.  Don used to have large birds, and he remembers he has a bird ladder, let’s see if that can help him get up!  (Can ducks climb ladders?!)  The ladder is too wide.  He goes home to cut it down.  In the meantime Debbie calls her daughter, Marissa, whom Debbie says has skinny arms.  Marissa zooms right over with her daughter Kacey.  Marissa reaches in as baby duck has started to move up the pipe, but when he squirms near her hand it startles her, and she scratches her knuckles badly as she jerks her hand up… Even injuries in our effort to save Baby Duck!

While Marissa is working in the pipe my husband and Don are trimming the ladder rungs further—with garden clippers.  We put the [half] ladder :) down the pipe, and ~

         HE MAKES IT!!  He actually used the ladder to wedge himself up!!  (Notice the high-tech half-ladder.  LOL)

HIP, HIP, HOORAY!!  WE SAVED HIM!! ….

 

Ummm….What do we do with him now?

My husband brings out a shoe box (it occurs to me, in the midst of all the activity, how quickly he found a shoe box…and though I don’t save shoe boxes, I buy shoes often enough that there’s usually a box to be found—funny, the things that cross our minds), and Don offers to take him to the pond behind his house to see if Mama Duck is there.  We all agree that’s the best option.

Fifteen minutes later Don appears at our garage, where my husband and I are working, and he tells us this story, “I walked to the edge of the pond, but there were two (muskrats??? I don’t know what he said the animals were), and they would’ve eaten it for breakfast, so I went to the other side of the pond, put him in the water, and the _______ (whatever he said) ATE IT!!”  “No way!!  After all we did to save him?!”  He says, “Nah…they didn’t eat it.  It was the coolest thing.  I put him in the water and here comes the mama duck and all her babies, paddling as fast as they could toward it.  I wished I’d had a camera…it was perfect that it was Mother’s Day.”  HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MAMA DUCK!!

THE END

of a happy story

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I’m going to share this happy story at the parties below.  I hope you’ll stop by and visit them!

Sunday’s Simply Klassics at http://www.simplyklassichome.com/

Sunday Blog Hop at http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com/

Sunday Showcase at http://www.bystephanielynn.com/

Sundae Scoop at http://www.iheartnaptime.net/

Show Off Your Cottage Monday at http://houseinroses.blogspot.com

Metamorphosis Monday at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Monday’s Blue Monday athttp://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Masterpiece Monday athttp://boogieboardcottage.blogspot.com/

Market Yourself Monday at http://sumossweetstuff.blogspot.com/

Monday Just Something I Whipped Up at http://www.thegirlcreative.com/

CraftOManiac Monday at http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com/

Too Cute Tuesday at http://funkypolkadotgiraffe.blogspot.com/

Sew Cute Tuesday at http://thecreativeitchboutique.blogspot.com/

Wow Us Wednesdays at http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

Wednesday at Tea Rose Home at http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/

We Did It Wednesday at http://www.sew-much-ado.com/

Wednesday’s Hoo’s Got Talent at http://nightowlcrafting.blogspot.com/

Home and Garden Thursday at http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/

Inspiration Friday at http://www.atthepicketfence.com

Vintage Inspiration Friday at http://commonground-debrasvintagedesigns.blogspot.com/

Show and Tell Friday at http://romantichome.blogspot.com/

Friday Favs at http://www.naptimecrafters.com/2012/04/friday-favs-party-60.html#more

Show and Tell Saturday at http://www.bedifferentactnormal.com/2012/04/show-and-tell-saturday-042812.html

Spotlight Saturday at http://www.classyclutter.blogspot.com/