First Half of 1996 – 1997
Our girls were 5, 8, and 11 when I returned to teaching high school full-time. This was the year of Quackers the duck and our immersion into the world of 4H, starting with poultry and rabbits, and then moving to sheep and pigs. One afternoon, Sammy brought home a special “gift” from her kindergarten class, a newly hatched, almost neon yellow duck. Quacker’s webbed feet never touched land as he was passed from one girl to the next. Most days, he slept contentedly in the palms of his many little mothers, within another hand’s reach of duck feed. Quackers thrived and pooped and pooped and thrived. At night, he slept in a refurbished hamster cage, which lasted about a week, as he quickly outgrew that abode and moved into the chicken coup.
Our cat, Ginger stalked him wherever he waddled, so our girls and their friends stood guard while he was young. However, ducks grow quickly, even faster than children do, and within a month, Quackers was twice the size of the cat. Ginger kept her distance—the two paced on the backyard deck—meowing and quacking, respectively to come into the house. By three months, in duck adolescence, Quackers was like something out of a Dr. Seuss book—a brown, white, yellow mishmash of colored feathers on short legs, long neck with a beacon of an orange bill. As he grew, he became territorial; hence, our assumption that this duck was a male and no 4H leader was going to “sex” him to find out.
One morning, Allie opened the chicken coup to release Quackers for his daily foraging of our yard. As she lifted him out of his cage, he flapped his white wings that proved flightless, which landed him squarely between the cage and a bale of hay. Bottom up and webbed feet kicking furiously, Quacker’s neck and small head wedged firmly in the narrow spot, while poor Allie screamed for help, but by the time I pulled Quackers free, he was bleeding from his bill, which I deduced brain damage. Sure enough, the next few days Quackers staggered around the yard, twisting his head to one side to see with his one good eye. He was a sad, nearly blind duck—a large, flightless Pekin better for a meal than anything else, but slowly, over weeks, Quackers recovered.
At four months, Quackers had developed into a well-fed Pekin, ready for a banquet. He flourished from the exercise and endless supply of food. The exercise came from chasing small children who ran about our yard. Not that he would eat any of them, but countless kids from the neighborhood sustained tiny red welts from his bill-bites, as he latched on the thinnest piece of skin and held tight. I was the nurse for many. Once safely atop the play structure, the children were stranded by Quackers, who circled the area, quacked loudly, and waited to strike unaware children who swung too low, or dropped from the rope, or slid down the slide, or jumped off the monkey bars. He was there. Waiting. Quacking. Again, I rescued kids with my mop in hand and defended against duck-attacks.
By summer’s end, after months of hosing off the deck or walkways or wherever the duck waddled, months of dashing outside mop in hand to protect small, defenseless children, I was “done with duck raising.” Time to release our assailant. Quackers clearly outgrew our domain, one-half acre was insufficient territory. He needed a more expansive spread; say the entire pond at the bottom of our hill. The hills beyond our house were nearly limitless—expanding into 1500 acres of wilderness, a regional park. Quackers could roam forever–free at last!
We found a large orange crate in which Quackers could sit, and then with smiles amid tears, we marched down the hill. Each little girl sniffled her goodbyes, sure that he would miss her and she would miss him. Dale brought the camera; we would have pictures. We reached the edge of the pond where Dale tenderly placed the box of Quackers. The five of us plus duck stood our places at the lip of the pond. I focused the camera, ready for action. Nothing happened. We waited—no flapping of wings, no quacking. The duck remained in the box, and he was not going anywhere. Quackers looked at Dale, with pleading in his eyes, and he turned his head from side to side to make sure Dale saw both eyes (prey, of course, have eyes on the sides of their head). He waited for his master, Dale to do something. Dale reached down and removed Quackers from the carton. The duck moved as close as possible to Dale’s size 14 boot, which Quackers knew well, but the boot was a safer bet than the unknown but beautiful pond. So, we stood—duck, Dale, me, Meg, Allie, and Sam for the longest time. No one moved.
After a few minutes, Dale with soft and gentle hands that Quackers never experienced before picked up the duck. He lovingly stroked Quackers’ long white feathers, spoke kind words, and said, “Goodbye. Be strong. Be a duck.” Then, he tossed him, as a quarterback would throw a football to a receiver at the far end of the field. Quackers instinctively flapped, which, of course was useless. He landed with a giant splash because he was such a beefy bird, and sprinted out of the water as though chased by some predator. Now, he was quacking, loudly, furiously, and shaking. He ran to his master’s side and Dale tried again. In fact, Dale tried to get rid of Quackers at least five times. Each heave met with a quacking duck, exiting the water faster than before—taking off as a seaplane. After an hour of unsuccessful attempts of introducing Quackers to our pond, we gave up. He was going home. To our house. I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Love is Complicated 