2nd verse of the Ballad Of Mildred The Mallard

If you read the original Ballad, you'll remember that we were left wondering what would become of sad little Mildred. Well, it turns out that there may be a happy ending after all, because yesterday, we found this ...



It's her nest!

And the eggs are fertilized! (We won't go into details about how we know, but let's just say it involved cracking one open, and ... um...)

Annnnnyway, now that we know where her nest is, we have found that she spends quite a bit of the day snuggled down on the nest, keeping the eggs warm. She is brown, and the grass is long, and she is really hard to see, and when she leaves to eat, she covers the eggs with leaves and loose feathers to hide them, and keep them warm. Gestation period for ducks' eggs seems to be about 28 days, so it seems that some time in the next month, we're going to have ducklings!

True, she _has_ been disowned by the pekings, and even when she finds them, they just quack at her a bit, and then turn away, leaving her calling pitifully after them, but it's not anywhere near as sad as it was, because she's going to be a mom. It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mother!

Stay tuned!

It served me right

Let me preface this by stating in my own defense that I'm not entirely proud of this story, and I don't do this sort of thing often. Not that I remember, or will admit too, anyhow.

Today, I was on my way to pick up my ballerinas from class, and had occasion to stop at Publix to pick up some bits for dinner. I was on my way to the checkout when my side-scanning snack-detecting radar spotted an end-cap full of Lays chips, of new and varying flavors.

Again, in my own defense, I feel obligated to point out that I had not had lunch, and my hunger was great, but my will-power was in indirect proportion, and my attention was drawn to a new (to me, anyway) flavor, the deliciously-named Sharp Cheddar Kettle chips.

Accordingly, I snatched up a large packet, and was eating them before I even got back to the car. They were every bit as yummy as I expected, and I determined to eat as many as I could before I got to the ballet school.

This is the part of the story that I'm not entirely proud of.

These chippies were so good that I planned to obfuscate their existence, and retrieve them after everyone had gone to bed, and then to enjoy all by myself, over a cup of tea. Or some other beverage.

The ballet school is perilously close to Publix, and kettle chips are hard to scoff, so I'd only managed to consume a small quantity before I pulled up to the school, and had to stuff them under the front seat, as my three ballerinas rushed the car.

They piled through the door with cries of "I'm hungry", and I'm _starving_!"

"We'll be home soon, and you can have a sandwich." said I, slyly.

"I smell CHIPS!", said Alexis, who apparently has a very good nose.

I caught my breath.

"I SEE CHIPS!!!", said Alexis, whose nose was indeed _very_ good, and had led her to my hiding place.

"I WANT SOME!!!!!", shrieked the two ballerinas in the back seat in unison.

I must say they were most un-ladylike, and their behavior was completely unbecoming of their appearance as delicate ballerinas.

The rest of the ride home was in silence, except for loud chewing and crunching noises.

Needless to say, my plan for a tasty late night snack vanished along with the chips.

The moral of the story is "Don't mess with hungry ballerinas. They may look like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, but they are fierce."

The ballad of Mildred The Mallard

This last spring, we bought another dozen chickens, and eight ducks. The ducklings all looked the same, but it turned out that four of them were peking ducks, and four were mallards. Actually, although all the chicks looked the same, it transpired that three of them were roosters, but that's a story for another day.

Nevertheless, in time, four of the ducklings turned into medium sized brown mallards, who gave us beautiful little green eggs, and the other four turned into quite large black and white pekings, who gave us large porcelain-like white eggs. We ended up with three female mallards, and one drake, and two female pekings, and two drakes. Here's a slightly grainy picture that gives a bit of an idea of the difference between mallard and regular eggs...

One of the upsides for children growing up on a farm is that you never have to explain any aspect of the cycle of life, as it's regularly laid out in all its glory, and so it was with the ducks. The much larger peking drakes repeatedly, and frequently, mated one of the mallards in particular, who seemed to be a little slower, or perhaps a little less aware, than her sister. In a sort of an animal kingdom version of the Stockholm Syndrome, this particular mallard, whom we named Mildred, came to consider herself a peking, and when the other mallards eventually learned to fly, and would fly away to neighborhood ponds, she stayed with the pekings.

Every evening, the mallards would return to our place to spend the night, but every morning, off they'd go in search of adventure, while Mildred and the flightless pekings would waddle about our paddock looking for duck-y food. I don't know if you've ever seen ducks waddling, but they are seriously cute, and I would often joke that they quacked me up.

It was initially kind of pathetic to see poor little brown Mildred obediently following her larger, earth-bound captors around, while her brother and sisters flew free every day, but it actually turned out that it was to save her life. One evening about five weeks ago, the mallards chose to walk home from the pond over the road, instead of flying as they usually did, and in the gloom and gathering darkness, a passing motorist failed to see the trio, and that was the end of them.

None of the remaining ducks seemed to miss the squished mallards, and all seemed well. Mildred continued to give us gem-like green eggs, hidden in new nests every day. Our chickens would mostly obediently lay their eggs in their designated laying boxes, but the ducks find new and inventive places every day, and every day becomes a treasure hunt. If you look very closely at this picture, you can get the idea...



We were in a sort of avian nirvana, but as Solomon once opined, "This too shall pass", and pass this did.

Mildred eventually learned that she, too, could fly, and she began to obey her mallard instincts, taking to the sky, albeit only twenty or so feet high, every morning, and coming back each evening to see her friends. It was actually heart warming to see. She would arrive with a great quacking and beating of wings, and the pekings would rush towards her as fast as they could waddle, with similar great quackings, and they would sort of snuggle up in a duck-y sort of way, but the next day, she'd be off again, and gradually one day's absence became two, and then three.

She found a new place to lay her pretty eggs, and over time, the pekings seem to have forgotten her. For instance, out of routine, she arrived in the morning today instead of the normal evening, and went pathetically looking for her friends, but in the wrong paddock. She waddled all round, looking this way and that, and quacking loudly, but it was the wrong time of day, and the pekings were in a different paddock, and couldn't hear her. Eventually, she left, bereft and bewildered.

She returned tonight, and was immediately pursued by one of the roosters of immoral intent, but she could fly faster than he could run, and she got away, but had to leave the yard, again without finding her old friends.

Poor Mildred. Who knows what the future holds for her? Will she ever find her old mates again? Will she find happiness, or will she have a dusk encounter with a fast moving horseless carriage? Only time will tell.

It's so sad. In the words of Ronnie Milsap, it is almost like a song.

It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mallard.

Channeling my inner Tom Sawyer

Not that long ago, I went to Walmart (does that make me a Walmartian?), and for a joke, bought a pair of these ... I just thought they were hilarious, and intended to say to the crew, "Ok, anyone who misbehaves has to wear these!", but when I produced them, all four younger children said, almost in unison "Oh, can I have them?" Now, I may be a bad father, but I prefer to think I'm simply channeling my inner Tom Sawyer, and in an instant, I could see an easy way to reduce our housework. We now have four pairs of these fine slippers, and provided they retain their entertainment value, I may never have to vacuum again. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

This is a conversation I had with four of my girls yesterday morning. To set the stage, a typical morning involves feeding and milking the four-legged kids (goats), and feeding the chickens and ducks, and getting breakfast for eleven, and lunches for nine. It generally coincides with my needing to scan the overnight email and rss feeds for important information. You can imagine it gets pretty busy. They have to be at school between 8:15 and 8:30, but it's only about five minutes away. This particular morning, I was digesting information about a possible Internet Explorer 0-day exploit, and simultaneously Skyping with a fellow researcher overseas, when Megghann arrived at my door crying hysterically. "Daddy, can we leave? We'll be late for school." It was exactly 8:00. I speak fluent nine year old, and I knew she was just being dramatic, so I said very sympathetically, "Shoo." At 8:01, the thirteen year old arrived at the door, saying "Dad, can we leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:02, one of the twelve year olds arrived saying "Daddy, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:03, the fourteen year old arrived saying "Dad, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Go away!" (I've learned you have to be firmer with the fourteen year old.) At 8:05, the 0-day and I arrived at an understanding, and I went to the kitchen saying "Ok, hit 'em up, and move 'em out!" (I'm an old Rawhide fan), only to find that at least three of the other kids didn't have their lunch, or hadn't had breakfast, or had "discovered" a bit more homework they had to do. Never the less, a bit of judicious whip-cracking and general prompting, and all was completed, and we were in the car by 8:15-ish, and at school in plenty of time. Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. :-)

This is the whole crew, minus one grand-child. At home, we currently have two seventeen year old twins, Dustin and Devin, one sixteen-er Isaiah, a fourteen-er Brianna, thirteen-er Alicia, twelve year old twins, Alexis and Jada, and nine year old twins, Zachary and Megghann.