Water Works

Blue Jays season opener is on the tv … and I am relieved to have my feet up! We put the hoses back out in the duck run this morning. Which meant we had five very excited duck hens. Ducks are great talkers. They laugh, they scold, they have a specific sound for ‘Look out! Chicken in range!’ When they saw me haul out their pools from winter storage they followed at my heels calling ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ For the last two summers I carefully built cement block stairs for them to get in and out. They look so much bigger now …

I sat down on my sitting rock and watched while the ponds filled up. They all managed to get in and out without any steps at all. At first there was a lot of slipping and scrambling… the sides are wet plastic after all. The hardest part was landing on the river rocks I’ve piled all around the ponds to prevent the ducks from eating all the soil away. I brought out a bale of straw and made a soft dock. We’ll give that a go.

By the end of the afternoon the water was full of leaves and dirt and mud … and the raft of chitter chattering hens gave that their seal of approval. It got mine too. I am almost pinching myself to be certain the days of filling buckets and hauling them out from the house are over. Spring 2.0! Phew!