
You know, for those times when you're there and need to know that stuff.
It's all part of his charm. Really.
As I walked back to the house with MiniMe, we talked about the possibilities of ducklings hatching from the eggs in the as yet unlocated nest. To her desperate pleas, I promised her that I would keep an eye out for Mama Duck so we could maybe get a glimpse of the nest or -- gasp! -- even the ducklings when (or if) they arrived on scene.
Then?
peep!
That sound. I stopped in my tracks. Suddenly I was 10 years old again, and my sister and I were spending March and April as we always did -- with my maternal grandparents in their "winter home."
Being a retirement community, neighborhood kids were few and far between and we were pretty creative in the ways we found to entertain ourselves. Our best friends? The ducks. These tame and very curious creatures hung around for the old bread we would feed them, and in general were always way too close to the house for my grandfather's liking. His main gripe? When food goes in one end of a duck, it invariably comes out the other end...which was likely on the front or back porch where he had to scrub it away with the hose and a stiff brush.
Although the big ducks were fun to feed and chase, our end game was always the ducklings. Much to my grandparents' dismay, there were many meals interrupted as we jumped up from the dining room table because we saw a Mama Duck and her string of babies swimming by in the canal outside the window. Our delight in dashing out with bread to feed the babies was matched by Mama Duck's eagerness to bring them over for a tasty little snack.
peep!
It's a sound that brings me back to those days of my childhood.