17 Ducks In A Row

Communication has never been my strong suit. I grew up on the heels of being seen and not heard and was part of the generation that had the good sense to walk around the corner before sticking my tongue out at my mother. Being nice was always the thing girls were taught to aspire to and if you weren’t nice, someone was quick to point it out. I have vivid memories of my dad pointing it out to me at age 13, “What happened to you? You used to be so nice.” It wasn’t a question that needed an answer. I at least knew that much and kept my mouth shut.

For most of my life, I’ve kept my mouth shut. Any displeasure or negative comments were volleyed back and forth in my brain while I mastered the art of looking pleasant and agreeable. No one was ever again going to tell me that I wasn’t nice. But relationships require communication, and the fallout ranges from minor annoyance to catastrophic mess when you have trouble saying what’s on your mind. Most of the time, my lack of being able to speak up lands me somewhere in the middle.

One of my more middle-range moments began in January. The year is unimportant as it could have been any year when impulsiveness intersected with poor communication and produced 17 ducklings being ordered in January and flown from California to Michigan in April. It’s not that I didn’t talk to my husband about the prospect of getting ducks. There were vague conversations and no outright disapproval which to me seemed like a big green light to place my order. Over twenty years later, the Metzer Farms website is still one of the happiest places on the internet.

I must have sensed that this might be a one-and-done venture, which is probably why I ordered a few different breeds. I knew nothing about ducks so this seemed like a great way to learn about them. Buffs, Cayugas, and Swedish Blue ducklings arrived at the post office quacking their little hearts out just as the weather was beginning to warm up. Despite being told that they sometimes don’t all survive the journey, every one of them survived the journey. The sheer delight of opening the box still lives in my soul, as does the shock of seeing bands on each of their legs that needed to be cut off immediately. My daughter was around 10 years old at the time and was much calmer about this daunting task than I was. Those tough Belgian genes of hers were unphased by using scissors so close to their fragile, squirming legs. Within minutes, they were all gathered together in our garage inside a cattle watering tank beneath a red heat lamp and nesting in fluffy pine shavings. I knew this would be a learn-as-you-go project. What I did not know was that my learning would need to outrun their growth rate, something I had hugely underestimated.

“We’re going to need a duck barn,”, I announced within a few days of the ducks arriving. Our existing barn wasn’t predator-proof and they were too vulnerable to anything that could climb a fence. As someone who lives to build barns, my husband was on it. The frame went up, the concrete was poured, and a pen was built inside the barn in record time. Putting the sheet metal on the roof is still like a fever dream, with me standing at the top of the ladder holding the sheet and crying as he stood on the roof screwing the sheets down. I was sure one of us would fall and die. Neither of us did. A small duck door was installed on the back side of the building to allow the ducks to come and go as they pleased during the day. Unfortunately it did not please them to wander in the lovely grass in the back yard. It greatly pleased them to walk down the side of the highway. I lost track of how many times I would look up from my flower beds to find that all 17 of them had disappeared. They preferred a westerly direction which was fortunate for them as they did not have to cross traffic in pursuit of whatever was so enticing at the edge of the road. I often wondered what people must have thought who were driving by as I ran to get ahead of them, turned them around with arms flailing and walked them back to the backyard. “Oh look, mom! That nice lady is taking her ducks for a walk!” Or possibly and more likely, “What is that crazy woman doing with all those ducks?”

“We need an outside enclosure,” I announced mid-summer. My husband was in agreement, but only to a point. I had looked up the specifics in terms of the amount of space required for 17 ducks. He didn’t care about my specifics. “I’m not building a pen that big.”  We were at an impasse and unfortunately he was the one with the posthole digger. “Never mind,” I grumbled. “If you’re not going to build it the size it needs to be then don’t build it at all.” So he didn’t.

Fall was approaching by this point and all the reading I’d done about ducks and space suggested they would all be very unhappy in a crowded, indoor pen, and they would likely start fights with each other, possibly fighting to the death. I imagined bloody feathers and started looking for re-homing options before the weather turned cold. Thankfully there are people who are thoughtful and measured and read the articles about space requirements before getting ducks. When my husband asked how much I sold them for, I skirted the question and instead talked about how nice the woman was who had come to take them. She had been raising ducks for years and understood about space requirements beyond the cattle watering trough stage. How much did I sell them for, indeed. I was so thankful that she bailed me out of my self-created mess that I may have actually paid her for taking them. My memory is foggy in terms of the actual transaction.

What does remain crystal clear is the memory of our children and their excitement as they decided on names for 17 ducklings. We filled a kiddy pool with water every morning for them to play in that summer, and watching ducklings follow them through thick green grass was the kind of joy that is not just remembered, but still felt. We trained them to follow us by repeatedly calling out ‘ducky doo’, bribing them with handfuls of duck pellets as we walked them back into the barn each night at sunset. I don’t remember laughing at anything as much as we did those ducks, their antics still a core memory that we would have missed had they been born to a mother who insisted on knowing all the answers ahead of time. I sometimes marvel at people who think every situation through before they venture into uncharted territory. I’m sure they have their stories, too, but I think the high and low points of their tales probably look more like rolling grasslands than our jagged mountain ranges.

Age and necessity have both taught me how to communicate better, but they have done little to keep me from being impulsive. I’m less concerned with being seen as nice at this point in my life, and I fully understand why my mother at age 95 would frequently say “Take me as I am!” You hit a point in life when you just accept your shortcomings and know that if you haven’t changed by now, you’re not going to. I’m finally able to speak up and say what I’m thinking, which helps keep the misunderstandings in check, especially when exciting ideas or vague plans threaten to morph into something unforeseen. It takes all of my inner resources just to stay off the Metzer Farms website this time of year. Keeping my credit card out of arm’s reach helps, too.

Two Holland Lop rabbits have lived in large floor pens in my basement for nearly five years now, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about re-homing them once in a while. They, too, were an impulse decision and as a self-imposed penance for never learning from my mistakes, they are here until the day they cross the rainbow bridge. As much as fewer pet chores sure sounds nice some days, Amos and Grady trust me and I know I could never give them away. This is the only home they’ve ever known. Besides the rabbit poop is good for my flower beds, so there’s that. Whenever I talk to other gardeners about ways to improve the soil and in turn grow healthy plants, I tell them about my rabbits and act like that was the plan all along. Turning impulsive decisions into a calculated benefit is an art, but you have to work at it.