Thwarted Motherhood

When we first moved out here we bought four day-old Pekin ducks (think Aflac) home to live on our pond. They spent the first three weeks or so in an old playhouse on the property that we encircled with chicken wire. We put a small plastic tub with water in there for them to play in. When the time came for them to be introduced to the pond, they never looked back. They played, and slept, and made love and ultimately died (several years later) on the pond. Two years ago our grandkids Erica and Owen went with us to get some more ducks. A family nearby had Rouen ducklings available. We took the dog kennel and the station wagon and almost died of both laughing and asphixiation as we drove home with the ducks making the station wagon smell like the worst Honey Bucket you ever met. Rouens are similar in markings to Mallards - but they are probably twice as big. Our two males and one female have made a nice life for themselves on the pond - they have learned to defend their food from intruders, where the sunny spots are, and how the weed whacker won't come too close. So for the second year now the female has disappeared for several days in a row, and we have had to go hunting in the woods for her nest. Last year she came off the nest for a bit of a swim and we immediately hit the woods and found her 19 eggs. This year we worried about it; trying to imagine what a mess we would have if she actually hatched a bunch of babies - until finally we had a brainstorm. So Lucy the retriever mix was set loose in the area we knew she favored. And within one minute she had flushed the duck; two minutes later twenty-two eggs were relocated from the nest to a bucket. Now the thwarted mama duck has rejoined the boys hanging about on the pond. I don't think they even talk about it, they've just gone on as before.