So many different titles for this post come to mind, that I can’t leave it at just one, but first you must know the story of this, The Final Countdown Duck.
Eleven years ago, in early Spring, I bought 14 baby chicks in a variety of breeds, and 3 ducklings and raised them indoors in a large box until they were big enough, and the weather was warm enough, for them to be transferred to their new home outside, in the pen and chicken coop I’d built for them.
In the first year of their lives, two chickens were lost to a neighbor’s dog he’d allowed to run loose, before I caught the dog, made sure it understood the need to stay out of my yard in the future, and chased it off.
Chickens don’t live as long as ducks do, and over the years they all died off but one. 3 were killed by marauding raccoons, which paid with their lives for that assault. Others succumbed to illnesses that chickens do get, until there was only one left, a red hen. By this time there was also only one duck left, since one had been killed by those same raccoons and another had gotten Stumblefoot, and died of the infection.
Stumblefoot is a foot infection that ducks can get from walking on hard ground. Duck’s feet are made for swimming and not walking on hard, rough soil, and are easily injured.
The Last Supper Duck also had Stumblefoot, but survived it. The infection caused her left foot and lower leg to fall off, but she healed at the knee joint and over the years grew such a large callous there that today Pegleg Pete Duck walks almost normally.
Several days ago, Hopalong Cassidy Duck began quacking incessantly at me so I went up to see what was up, and she ran under a thorn bush where she had a nest and continued to sound off, and back there in the morning dark was The Little Red Hen. She’d passed away during the night, sharing the nest with her only friend.
It has now been Three Days of the Condor Duck quacking mournfully, all alone, The Last of the Mohicans Flock having passed away. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Duck’s Nest. Oh, so many good titles, so few ducks.