Ducks: Take 2

Usually it's me that parks this side of crazy, but every once in a while Kip steps up to take a turn.

On Tuesday he came home from Rural King with 2 rouen (pronounce row-in) ducks. He called me first to ask it it was okay and all. I didn't really want more ducks, but figured that if he did, I was okay with that.

And then that night he went to work and I lost sleep over the silly things. They didn't seem very friendly. They might get cold. Were they safe in the garage when they were so little?

Why, I wondered had we gotten more ducks when I was still attached to our old ducks who I thought had wandered off down the creek. With their new boyfriend and alpha male, Rico. You remember Rico. He was the handsome one I was getting kind of fond of because he joined our flock.

There he is on the left. Anyway, they hung out with Rico at our house for a couple days and then they left. The creek was still way high and I thought they had taken off. Then I saw them the next pond over in one of our neighbor's yards. I was actually comforted. Oh good, I thought, they'll just become neighborhood ducks. They'll come over to visit sometimes and we'll see them around. 

Well, we do see them around--in our neighbor's yard--always the same yard and pond. With Rico standing by. It's not the worst thing on earth, but seriously, the ingrates. And also, how will I make it through life with 3 girls. There better not be any Rico's hanging around. Now I know to chase the Rico's of the world off.

Anyway, so Kip dealt with our little turncoat ducks by getting 2 more. That didn't seem like the greatest idea to me.

But. Since there were only 2 and since the weather has been warmer, they started imprinting on us. We could take them out a lot and play with them in the lawn. And they started following us around. The pekin never did this. They had each other and it was so cold for the first couple months we had them that we didn't get outside nearly as often. They other nice thing is that with only 2 there is much much much less mess and less food expense. That's been nice. Those pekin could eat and they could poop.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the new ducks are really really cute. And I've decided they really were a good idea after all. Because, you know, I am inclined to park on this side of crazy much of the time.

Mark gave them names--Max and Tiana. When they grow up they'll look similar to mallards. They'll be larger and the females have somewhat different marking, but they males are nearly identical looking to the mallard.

Max and Tiana love worms. Kip will find worms in the dirt and point to them and the ducks will just go nuts and gobble them up. They'll sit on the kids' laps and follow them around. Yesterday the kids put them in their shirts to keep them warm and they climbed up into their sleeves.