Clint and Lyndsee Glauser

Ducks...This story begins two years ago when Clint and Matt, my brother-in-law, decided they were going to be farmers. They had these big plans to have a pig and a sheep and ducks and raise them. So start this dream they took a drive down to Mount Pleasant with a cardboard box and picked up five bummer lambs. This I wasn't opposed to because we had had baby lambs when I was growing up and I loved the experience of bottle feeding the baby lambs and raising them. But at the end of the season for some reason they would always end up in the freezer and this was something that I just had to get used to. Back to the story; we have five lambs, my brother Adam bet that only one would survive. He ended up being right. And just to throw this in bummer lambs don't have a huge percent of surviving because they are taken away from their mom's born for one reason or another, so it's not like we wanted them to die or anything. So Clint raised up Brownie, our only lamb left, and she is now in the freezer. Not something I like to admit.
So back to the reason for this post. This same spring Clint and Matt went to IFA and came home with three ducks. Brad and Terry, which were Matt's, and Clyde, who was mine and Clint's. I can't honestly say that I opposed this idea either because baby ducks are probably the most darling creatures ever, and what's the harm in a few ducks.

So, we raised them into probably what can be considered their puberty, because they didn't quite have all their feathers yet and were still trying to get rid of their fuzz. We decided that a box in the garage wasn't the optimal place for ducks to live and decided to let them roam the yard and field where we live. Plenty of duck friends around, there shouldn't be any harm in this idea we thought. One night later Brad and Terry were missing and a few hours later Clyde was missing. Clint found Clyde down in the canal and brought him back up to the yard to quickly learn that he would immediately try to get back to the canal, and who can blame him? He's a Duck. That was the end of 2008's ducks. We never saw a trace of them again.
Onward to 2009. I am a sucker for small animals. I know this about myself and yet I do nothing about it. I went to IFA with my 5 year old nephew and they had the most Adorable baby ducks I had ever seen. Way cuter than the year before. So I did what anyone would do and bought three, the minimum amount you can purchase. They quickly became known as Quackers, Yellowy, and Ming-Ming, but never had a name of their own because we couldn't tell them apart.

Clint said this year I had to do it by myself since I was the one who bought them. I was fine to do this until they started growing out of their box and I was going to run into the same problem as last year, which I didn't mention was Todd, the fox who lives in the field and the likely culprit for the previous duck's diminishment. I found an old rabbit cage in the garage and decided it would be the perfect home. They could be out in the back yard, but protected from Todd. This worked for maybe a week or two, and then as I went to go check on them one day I was startled because there were only two ducks in the cage. I proceeded to walk down to the cage and was presented with one of the worst images. One of the ducks beaks was totally gone. She was a mess and had been mauled, but not enough for her to be dead. She was just waddling around as if nothing was different. I immediately lost and started running around trying to find someone to help me. My emotional state was a mixture of needing to barf and wanting to cry. I did neither but I probably should have done both. So my cute husband rushed to my aid, and put the poor duck out of its misery and let the other cute duck go in the canal. After this experience I decided I could be done with pet ducks.
That brings us to today. Minding my own business I came down to my computer to do my rituals. Facebook, g-mail, Zionsbank...the regulars. As I was trying to check my things I heard the most obnoxious quacking and a tiny amount of chirping, out side the windows. I knew there were ducks around, because we have this cute duck couple that roams our yard and I was wondering if she had somehow made her nest in our window well. I opened the blinds to find her above the window well pretty much squawking, and the tiniest little baby duck that had fallen into the well. I immediately rushed to the aid of this little guy because I didn't want the mom to leave him behind. Side note: this momma duck puts her nest on the top of our two-story house, to keep her nest safe from Todd and the pesky magpies we have around here. Putting her nest on the top of a house is great for her because she can fly. Baby ducks can't. Soon after they hatch she flies down and sits there quacking until all of them jump, well fall, 30 feet down. I'm not making this up Clint watched the whole thing last year. So here I am again with a baby duck. I jumped down to save him, but mother duck had already started on her way to the canal with her 8 little ducklings. I hurried to catch up to her so I could put this little guy at the end of the line as if nothing had even happened. I tried setting him down a few times and he didn't even try to catch up. I noticed that his left leg was totally limp. He had a broken leg. I couldn't just leave him out there to die. I knew there was a slim chance for it to survive so I could at least let it be warm for a few hours.

We let it try to swim which only made us feel worse for the little duckie. He would just swim in circles since only one foot worked. We got him out and he stayed soaking wet. He was fading quick, but at least he wasn't down in my window well to be left to for the magpies, right? Shortly after April comes running in saying there are more babies. Two healthy baby ducks had gotten left behind in my rush to save the little gimp duck. Three ducks again. I decided since the two were healthy maybe I could find the mom and give them back. I had no luck. So my parents went out a little while later and actually found her with her babies. My dad pushed them along toward my mom who had put the two little one in the canal and gimpy just by the canal. As soon as mommy duck saw her babies she did this quacking noise through her nose and they turned and swam right to her. 2 out of 3 pretty dang good.
So there is my story on ducks. I hope to never be in charge of any ducks ever again. I won't mind looking at them and even petting them. But no more ducks for me please. And this bad duck karma can be blamed on Matt and Clint for having the bright idea to be farmers and bringing home those first three ducks three years ago.

Here is a sad video of gimpy trying to swim. Way sad.

I've been thinking a lot about going somewhere warm and fun the past few weeks and it reminded me of my Hawaii trip in January and how I wish I could go back. I tried to convince Clint that we had nothing tying us to Utah so we should just move there and make a living there. I mean come on, why wouldn't we, but he reminded me that I would probably miss my family. I tried to tell him I would be fine and we could just live there for a few years or months for that matter. He didn't think it was such a great idea. But you mark my words I will one day live in Hawaii, even if its just for a short time, I will!
Here's some great moments of our girls trip! Besides the whale/dolphin encounter, which I don't have any pics of on this computer, one of the greatest things we did was drive across the island probably six times just to go to Mostumotos...greatest shave ice in the world! It really is all it's cracked up to be. Delish!!