"He's doing it again," Mary sighed, rolling her eyes.
I peered out the window at the duck coop. Sure enough, a male duck was standing in the doorway. There was a traffic jam of ducklings piling up behind him, trying to push their way through. The poor, oblivious duck stretched his neck and tilted his head, looking the doorway up and down, attempting to make sense of the opening before him. What was it? How did it work? Perhaps he should sit down and ponder it for a while.
He hunkered down across the doorway just large enough for one duck at a time to pass through. Nineteen ducklings, trapped inside the coop, began quacking loudly for him to get out of the way. They wanted the food Joey had placed in their yard. They wanted to bathe in the large water tub, dunking their feathers and flapping their wings. They wanted out. This duck, however, wasn't moving. He seemed convinced there was no way to get to the yard from the coop.
Disgusted, Mary slipped on her shoes and headed outside. I watched from the window as she shoved the offender from his spot into the duck yard. The other ducks poured through the now unblocked doorway quacking their indignation as they passed by in their rush to get to the food.
"We have to keep him, Mom," Joey pleaded beside me. "He's just too dumb. We can't eat him."
We raise ducks and chickens for food. My children know this. They don't have a problem with it. Yet, here was my youngest son asking me to grant clemency to this duck, to change his status from farm animal to pet.
"Joey, do you know what a pain it would be to keep him over winter? He'll be messier than your chickens. The coop will have to be cleaned out more often - in the freezing cold."
"I know, Mom. It's just... I've already named him."
Uh oh.
"His name is Bob."
"Why Bob?"
"You know, like in the movie, What About Bob?"
In the movie, Bob Wiley is so afraid to leave his apartment, he had to talk himself into walking out the door. I had to admit, the name fit.
A short time later, Bob was moved into the chicken yard and we gathered around to see how the chickens would react. I was certain Bob would be bullied, but instead, Bob began to assert himself. He flapped his wings at the girls when they tried to peck him. He pushed through the feathered throng to join them at the food pan. He even chased a couple of them away from the water when they tried to keep him from it. After much clucking and quacking, chasing and flapping, the duck and the chickens settled down and ignored each other. Huh.
Bob then did something that surprised us all. He waddled up the ramp and into the coop. He waddled out of the coop and back down the ramp! Without prompting, without being pushed, he had figured out how to use the door! In and out he went without any hesitation. I briefly wondered if we had moved the wrong duck. A quick check showed that, no, this was indeed Bob. Again, huh.
Bob made himself at home with the chickens. The only time he appeared discontent was when the other ducks grew noisy. He would pace the fence, looking through the wire at the duck coop.
"I think he needs some girl ducks to keep him company." one of the children suggested.
That was not going to go over well with their daddy. It had been hard enough to convince Matt to keep Bob. He bemoaned the loss of one duck dinner and I doubted he would agree to the loss of more.
"One female," Matt conceded, scowling.
Lucille joined Bob in the chicken yard. She was one I had kept an eye on from the beginning. Being the only Pekin with a tuft of feathers that "poofed" out of the top of her head, she was easy to spot.
"You know that's a defect, right?" Was the only thing Matt said.
Yes, I knew. Somehow it seemed fitting. Our family kept the misfits, the oddballs. Remember our pet asthmatic chicken? It's just how we were. Why change now?
A few days later, another female duck was added to the chicken yard. Azula (named for an anime villain with a distinctive laugh) was a duck I had been looking forward to getting rid of. It's not that she was a mean duck or anything, but, well, her quack was... evil. I'm not even kidding. Many a time, a horrendously loud, maniacal quack would pierce the noisiness of our daily routine, sounding for all the world like she had listened in to our conversation and determined all was going according to her evil plan. Oh, yes. That duck would have to go.
It was Alex who requested a stay of execution. He lobbied hard for her, listing the advantages of keeping her and promising to do any extra work required. He then gave me sad eyes for good measure.
So, we have three ducks now. It's very entertaining.
And there's the story of how we ended up with a duck named Bob. Never a dull moment here at Cold Anchor Farm...
