Ducky Update

We've had some weird weather here, its been in the 80s which is even warm for us and, despite this being the dry season we've had quite a bit of rain.  

Ok, so now that I've updated you on our weather, let me get to the point, a little over a week ago a storm rolled in (its cool to watch storms come across our pond!) and for whatever reason this prompted momma duck and babies to leave the pond for the first time since their arrival. I watched from our dining room as four ducks disappeared down into the canal.  

The next day Jed sent Evan out to feed the ducks.  A few minutes later Evan came inside and sat down next to me.  He said, "Mom, I have something to tell you.  There are only 2 ducklings today."  He was looking at me like he was waiting for me to burst into tears and wasn't sure how to comfort me.  When did my little Evan turn into a big seven year old man?!  

After assuring him I wasn't going to break down we went out to check to see if somehow the third duckling had gotten lost or stuck somewhere. Sad day but such is life.

 Since then our little ducklings have doubled in size and they're much more trusting of us, especially Seth who they allow to hand feed them!  They're still quite skiddish when the food runs out though.

 That's our disheveled porch in the background.

I think it's hilarious when a duckling steals a piece of bread intended for its mom and then can't swallow it.  Greedy little one! :)

So we've been quite content with our little family of three however you can imagine our delight when three more ducklings, and their mommy, appeared on our pond yesterday.  The boys were so beyond excited that before I knew it they had slipped almost an entire loaf of bread out to the newcomers (thank goodness it was the $1 loaf from Aldi, a few days ago I found them feeding the ducks the $3 artisan bread we had splurged on, yikes)!

  The new ducks actually look older than our ducks (less down and a tad bit bigger) so they must have been living on one of the other ponds in our neighborhood or made their way from the big lake on the other side of the forest.

So in an unexpected turn of events we're back up to 5 ducklings!  Woohoo!