You're both wonderful story-tellers!
"Eaves trough", eh? Didn't know or remember that you're Canucks. Down here we call 'em "gutters". <g>
I feel fortunate that my daughter's extra-curricular activities are mostly softball and anything music-related. Most of my spectating is done either outdoors on beautiful days or indoors.
Well, since I'm on the R&C board, I might as well tell a little story myself. Not sure why this one popped into my head, but here goes. If I've told it before, you can't stop me.
I've always wanted to live in the country for a number of reasons. Some of them broad like "no neighbors", but some of them very specific. The specific ones have always been:
1. A backhoe and room to play with it.
2. A workshop of obscene dimensions.
3. Ducks.
The workshop is coming along nicely now. I'll have to post some pictures of it now that all of the siding is on it. Some folks used to follow the project when I'd post pictures of it on SI. I've got the circuit breaker box and some metal-halide light fixtures in the back of my truck to go in it this weekend.
But this story isn't about the workshop.
We currently have 12 ducks and have been fortunate in that we've had 12 ducks for about 3 months now. Whatever predators took them down from 25 seem to have gotten full. Or possibly discouraged by the 3 "peeps" that've grown into such large and aggressive-acting birds that even the girls are a bit intimidated by them. We call them the "Turkey Ducks". Actually, they're Muscovies.
It's amazing that animals so small and stupid can have personalities, but they really do. And they have names to match, though not individually. For example, the 4 who are always in the swimming pool are "The Brat Pack". Always the same 4 ducks. We get so mad at them fouling (fowling?) the water, but they're so gosh-darned cute.
I say we don't name them individually, but one of them does have a name.
A light-brown drake (we call those kinds "oatmeal" ducks for some reason that likely only my daughter understands) that is either strongly independent, or just despised by the rest of the flock. He's always been to himself.
I didn't even know he existed for a while, but one day my daughter told me she was chasing ducks out of the garage (Bad Duckies!) and she "lost" one in the very tall weeds surrounding the garage.
I'd forgotten about him until one day when I was looking for some lumber out there and heard a rustling in the weeds and could see movement.
I ventured into the weeds to see what kind of varmint it was. Whatever it was kept moving away from me. Not making any noise save for the rustling of the weeds. I could see the movement and decided it definitely wasn't a snake but could be a raccoon. It was actually a bit eerie seeing the movement of the weeds but not the animal that was doing it. It reminded me of one of the Jurassic Park movies. The one with the overhead scene where all you could see was the grass moving while the 'raptors picked off nearly every person in the grass.
I finally chased the critter near the fringe of the weed patch when I saw a bill and heard the characteristic male version of "Quack".
Thus was he dubbed "Jurassic Duck". The name has stuck. We even got a Halloween trinket that's a duck that looks just like him but is in witch's garb.
The day he found the koi pond in the front yard was hilarious. He'd been away from water for so long but when he discovered that pond, he'd spend every day just playing in it for hours.
The Turkey Ducks later discovered the same pond and harassed him and we didn't see him at that pond anymore. We found him a week later at another of our ponds, though. He's got it all to himself. Bigger pond than the one the other ducks use, too. We checked yesterday and he wasn't there, though. As soon as it's a little bit warmer, we're going to check the big lake and hope he's there.
Ducks are so therapeutic for me. Most of my life is very digital, and I'm glad that I get so much enjoyment out of my duckies. I can just sit and watch them for hours on end. Especially the "peeps". Adorable the way they'll follow their mother around.
We're nearing completion of our room addition and when it's done, I'll finally realize another of my life-long dreams. I'll move my office to the old living room (where I'm typing this now from my wife's laptop via wireless) and will have my desk right by a large picture window overlooking the back pond and all the ducks.
It'll be nice to be able to just sit and look at the ducks for a while. I'll likely work a lot less, but I suspect the quality of the work I'll do will improve. It'll be helpful to take the occasional "duckie break".
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