Duckarama

Quack, quack, so goes the duck.

Cute little suckers as I watch them piddle around in their box, already splashing in the water with their little flipper feet, and imagining them waddling by my - as of yet - undug pond. I found these Mallard ducks on craigslist for $2/piece, the whole crew for $20. I bought them from a police officers wife down in English Turn, a small semi-rural forgotten district of New Orleans near the Algiers levies. The road to her house was fraught with deep pot-holes and drug dealing hoodlums roaming the streets just a mile from her house. She should tell her husband to get to work! Alas, she and her husband had a beautiful home on 3 or 4 acres, a huge back yard with outside play equipment and two little rugrats playing in the recent rain puddles. The kiddies were wearing booties and heavy jackets as it never made it much above freezing today, record cold not seen since the early eighties here, and their mother couldn't chastise them enough to encourage them to go back inside where it was warm. The ducklings were milled together under a heat lamp in a small cage. She had been keeping them in the garage and away from the cold. I couldn't help but take them all. Some of them should be good eating by Christmas or........sooner, depending on how fast we all need to be eating food that's not procured from the soon to be empty food shelves. I didn't have the heart to bring up doomerish conversation as I looked around at her little homestead brimming over with 4x4's, atv's, and a mountain of plastic Chinese junk. I'm sure she was happy. So after placing some hay and wood chips in my box, I grabbed the squirrelly suckers one by one and put them all together so they could cuddle for warmth. It was a long drive back home.

I would give these guys a good home with a nice pond before one day sacrificing a few for the dinner table. That's my plan anyway, just like the chickens out back who are as of right now bravely facing the bitter night. They sit on their roost gathered together under a clear starry night, the Artic North wind blows in between the pines, and the vultures that call my property home stare down at them with what intent I do not know. The ducks have been brought inside, and they chirp and splash in the water behind me as I surf the net looking for my doom fix, and my bread maker churns away making me some honey bread. The first loaf didn't turn out too well, too salty.

I've done pretty well with chickens, three successful hatches, a murderous rampage by a neighbors dog, and lots of eggs that attest to my homesteading prosperity. Hopefully my fowl thumb will show itself.