THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUCKS...

This being Fathers Day, I can't help but to share this story of the time my Mother and Father almost got divorced...Now you might say, "What does that have to do with Fathers Day?" This leads me to the contents of my blog!.. While the MacAnnys were our friends with all their animals..they must have shared a few of their ducklings with us. We built a large circle of wooden fence held together with wire. Placed a large turkey roaster in a pre dug hole. This substituted as their lake for swimming. We now had three ducks, the first was a male we named him Sassy..he was my older sisters duck that had survived a prior Easter. My Quack Quack had seen the light and buried up at Mae and Franks Cottage. Sassy thought he was the boss of the other two ducks who later joined the little group. They were Mac and Annie... We knew Sassy was a male because male ducks have one feather on their tail that curls up away from the others and the females don't..Mac and Annie were probably both females because they eventually laid eggs!! And they didn't have the odd feather..Sassy was much smaller then the other two..We enjoyed watching them make the mud in the circle that was their home. They slopped water through their beaks until all the grass had turned so sloppy mud. The rain that continued to fall helped as well..The water pump was up a small grade away from the trailer. It had been raining and all the ground was soggy. So we would not to be walking in the mud, my Mother devised this walk way from the trailer to the pump out of boards. Old boards that had aged and cracked from the weight of those that trailed up to the pump. We filled buckets and hauled them down to the trailer for use. This day the boards were soaked with the rain. The ducks continually escaped their fence and would parade through the yard for grass...Now if you have never had a duck you can't realize just how much waste they make...The drop the biggest globs of slimy goo you have ever seen..and they are no respecters of where they do it..So walking, eating, and dropping all over the yard and the boards, we were victim of poop abuse!!..This day, my father traveled to the pump to gather two buckets of water...filled to the brim, he turns and continues down the soft, wet, slippery boards. Unaware of his footing..and where he was walking, he stepped and slid off the boards into the mud. The buckets flew in the air and came down on my father. Now my father you could say, had no sense of any kind of humor!! And didn't consider this anything but death to the ducks...Leaving the now empty buckets and soaked to the skin and covered with mud...He runs for as many ducks as he can catch screaming...."I am going to wring your necks"...and he meant every word..While he chased the ducks around the yard..grabbing and sliding in mud, duck crap and anything else that was on the ground. Words coming from his mouth could only be considered X rated!!..My mother wondering what was taking my father so long at the pump, looked out to see him running around grabbing to kill the ducks...I guess you could say he had reached that point of impatience where there was no reason!!!...My mother screaming at a level of shrill that a mother can do. "If you kill those ducks, I am leaving you!!..If you kill those ducks that's it. I am done" she screamed over and over..."I am leaving" and she meant it!!..My father, as mad as a hornet..dropped the duck he held in his hands. Seconds away from putting him into ducky heaven. Came into the house and didn't speak to anyone for a few days..Mother finished the water hauling job and for a few days we had a small amount of peace and quiet..with no fighting!!..As hard as it was, we never mentioned the fate of those ducks for many years passed...Eventually it become one of those stories everyone lived on at any family get together...Now I can look back and see the desperation of life my poor Dad had to spend everyday in...and I can only say, The past is over and forgotten..and now that you are gone...we are all still left with the memory of the night of the Living Ducks..Thanks for the memories!!!