Mallard Invasion

So, ducks.

If you read this blog from time to time you know that I moved to the country about 3 years ago after growing up in classic USA suburbia, going to college in the city known as the OSU campus and then moving to upper Columbus to what could only be described as "a place not terribly safe to live."

So moving out to basically the middle of nowhere was something I was all for. And I still am -- I love it out here. Todd's been here on many occasions and he can attest to two things:

• We're in the sticks
• It's quiet

Two things that I absolutely demanded when we decided to move and that my wife wholeheartedly agreed with -- as long as we could find a good school system, we were leaving city/burb life. We have well water with a $3,000 softener system so we can drink the stuff, a leech bed and about 2 1/2 acres of land with horses behind us and on our flanks and now we have two bulls, yes bulls, living across the street.

Did you know bulls are loud? These things are always pissed about something and they let out this moaning roar...sometimes at 3 AM. But at 3 Am would I rather hear a pissy longhorn or semi automatic gunfire and search choppers?

I'll take the bull.

This life is not for everyone, believe me, but I really enjoy living where I can see the stars (really see the stars), listen to animals being animals, and the only home invasion I need to worry about is via raccoon.

We're still country novices. I still hate the music so I'm not fully indoctrinated. We have a garden that bats about .500 on actually producing anything, and we still don't have many animals. Just the two dogs. But the fence, which we start doing tonight, may lead the way to having more animals around.

My neighbors have oodles of animals of all shapes and sizes -- including about 100 ducks who live on their pond. Well, this spring a mama mallard decided to make her nest right underneath our front window in our flower garden. One day I was outside pulling some weeds and ...hey -- a duck!

So we let her nest there for the full 26 days and 2 days ago I was outside about half awake checking to see if the frost had decimated our annuals and the mama duck waddles right past me. Being out here -- I'm still not used to that. But the ducklings were hatched and huddled in a corner. About 12 of them.

Cute little buggers.

Judy, our neighbor, always collects the ducks because if she lets them follow the mom they are sure to die from hawk attack, snakes, etc. Of the 12 ducks 2 may survive, so they always raise them in a safehouse (barn) until they can manage on their own. Well, they have 100 ducks already so I was asked if Ashley would like to raise them in our garage.

It was at this point that hilarity ensued....

More on that later. I need to get to work.