2005mar23. Today was Waterfowl Arrival Day (WAD). You pick waterfowl up at your local hatchery, or you have them mailed to your local post office. They used “Priority” Mail (did you know first class is cheaper and more likely to get there on time?) and when I got the box I thought “wow, they’re sure putting up one hell of a peeping-type racket for only four geese and two ducks.” There was a minimum order, so the girlfriend ordered two ducks to give to 4-H, which had a huge interest in getting free waterfowl. I opened the box [not shown below], and ... WAAAAHHHHH?
TWENTY-FIVE DUCKS!!??!!!?
I think a Target team member is somehow responsible for this. Actually it was an order mix-up, a hatchery was supposed to get the 25 ducklings. We hadn’t bought any of the feeding/drinking/warming lamp-type supplies for the geese, so there are my crappy makeshift water trays for all the world to see. You don’t want the geese (ducks) stepping in the water, but in every photo I took, there’s at least one duck sitting or standing in its own feeding “dish.” In this photo it also looks like they’re all just hanging around, but they were moving quite a bit, mostly away from the big scary human.
Endless peeping. So cute.
But they had to go. The 4-H guy wasn’t around that day, so the lot of them went to the feed store. They got to sit in a big horse trough with four or five older ducks, I hope they’ll play nice. And they had a great round drinking dish that was elevated so no duck was going to splash around in it. Forgot to ask for visiting rights. When I came home I heard some birds chirping and immediately thought “my babies ... my babies” and I collapsed or maybe that was after I accidentally banged my head against one of the goose coop rafters.