A Legacy (Dateline September, 2004)

I was walking back from the neighbor’s yard one morning a few weeks ago after chasing a flock of ducks out of the road and it occurred to me that I had created a legacy. Funny how these things start…

It began about four years ago when our neighbors received a breeding pair of Muscovy Ducks to populate their barnyard. If you do your research you will find out the Muscovy ducks come from South America, and are the only domesticated duck in the U.S. not from Mallard stock. (See how smart I am?) They are also the ugliest duck you will ever encounter – black and white, with a large red knobby schnozz and big orange feet.

“The neighbors” being “the neighbors”*, didn’t pen the ducks up, but let them roam the neighborhood to do whatever ducks do in their spare time (eating, pooping, procreating, pooping, sunbathing and more pooping). As we live in a rather small neighborhood (just us, “the neighbors” and a whole lot of cows) Ma and Pa Duck would come over for extended visits, returning home only when we ran out of bird seed or a clean place to poop.

All things being equal it was bound to happen. I came home one day to find Fred (the male duck) wistfully sitting by the side of the road gazing out at his mate – who was by that time not much more than a dark streak in the middle of the road. Being the kind-hearted person that I am, I retrieved what I could, called "the neighbors" and prayed that they didn’t eat road kill.

If you think this was the end of the story (like I did) – you don’t know much about ducks. Early the next morning as I was leaving for work I was stopped in my tracks by a very angry 18lb duck sitting in the middle of our sidewalk glaring at me. He was soon a very wet angry duck and I was on my way to work. Fred remained at his post for the next several days, marching from the front door to the back door (sort of like a Marine on guard duty) glaring balefully into our house.

After about three days, when I just couldn’t stand one more minute of being stared as I paraded by in my underwear, it occurred to me what was going on. Fred had convinced himself that his wife was being held captive inside our house and he wasn’t leaving until he got her back. Faced with that much dedication I finally gave in. At work that day I started educating myself on ducks and began a search for a female replacement.

It didn’t take long for me to track down the local 4-H coordinator, who recommended I contact a young man who lived not far from my house. It seems he’d been raising Muscovy’s for quite a while for show at the local fair (probably winning the “Best Ugly Duck” contest or something… is there an award for projectile pooping?). So that Saturday, husband, daughter (we only had one kid back then… the peace, the quiet, the money!) and I set off for the local duck farm.

It didn’t take long before we returned home with a very mad 10 lb female duck in the cat carrier (should have rinsed the darn thing out, I guess). Getting out of the car I released the duck right into the arms of her waiting husband - who proceeded to do the one thing ducks do best…make that the 2nd best thing. This caused one of those “motherhood” moments you are never quite ready for – explaining to my 18-month-old daughter why Fred was playing so hard with the female ducky that she was squealing…

The summer passed and Fred and Ethel set up housekeeping in our side yard. Ethel sat on her eggs for about 2 months and at the end of the summer we had a brood of 10 babies (yeah, ok, cute babies). Sometime around October "the neighbors" showed up to collect the ducks.

After a peaceful winter interlude (which included a relatively clean driveway, and a non-bitching husband) the ducks returned. Early that spring two more mating pairs came back to set up housekeeping. It got so bad that leaving the house was like traipsing through a mine field – avoiding duck poop is a skill that takes time and lots of patience. By the end of the summer we were up to about 45 ducks in various stages of maturity.

I spent my summer evenings chasing ducks out of the road, and was mostly successful. The tourists visiting our area must have gotten used to seeing me dash out of the house in various stages of undress screaming like a mad woman, and swinging a broom to corral the ducks out of the road and under the fence. Some tourists got so enamored of my performance that they would purposely drive by and honk their horn just to see if I remembered to put my pants on before barreling out of the house…(go figure).

Occasionally I wasn’t fast enough, or even at home, and a duck was killed. We would call over to "the neighbors" with a fatality count and they would send over some of their kids with a bucket to collect the remains. I’m not sure what they did with them, and I really don’t want to go there (as I seriously doubt they had a ducky graveyard…they’re from Detroit you know).

Well, "the neighbors" must have thought that 45 ducks were a bit much (or the ducks started pooping on their driveway) because by the next spring there were only about 15 left, including Fred and Ethel.

Ethel died later that summer, having succumbed to the road. A wake was held by about ten of the half grown babies for about an hour before I chased them back under the fence. Fred must have died of a broken heart that winter, as I didn’t see him after that.

All good things come to pass and so did the ducks. We didn’t see them much after that. "The neighbors" kept the ducks penned up pretty well (not sure if it was my call to the Sheriff’s Department or my husbands threat to make duck pie).

Then a few weeks ago, as I was finishing my coffee over the kitchen sink staring vacantly out the kitchen window – there they were. About 20 big, ugly, black and white ducks marching single file across our yard, heading right for the cornfield across the road. After intercepting them and turning them back to their own yard, I walked them home. That’s when it occurred to me that one small act of kindness on my part (or insanity, depending on whom you talk to) had taken on a life of its own - a legacy had been created (well, I guess there are worse things to be remembered for).

It’s funny, but I sorta miss seeing the ducks doing their FOD** walk down in our side yard every morning, like so many black and white cow patties marching in formation. I wonder if they'll come back ….

Love from Buckley.

*"The Neighbors" - No, they aren't the Adams Family...it's just how the kids refer to them ... but sometimes I wonder...

**FOD (Foreign Object on Deck) – usually referring to an inspection conducted on aircraft carriers or runways before airplanes take off – to prevent aircraft engines from sucking up strange things like ducks, or loose "neighbors".