Be Kind to your Web footed Friends

Feathery friends have become a family affair for us. The first encounter with duck ideas for Kevin and myself came at about the same era, only we hadn't met at that point. Kevin had a fascination with rubber ducks and he decided that he would spend as much time as he needed on the games at Dave and Busters, in order to win 250 rubber ducks. After his accomplishment he filled his college apartment with these rubber ducks. They were in a baby pool in his living room. They would drop down with a pulley system he invented, as you walked into the front door, or opened a kitchen cabinet. Too bad Kevin didn't keep them. Brooke's favorite toy as a baby was as I am sure you can guess, yes, a duck. He ended up floating some of the ducks in 50's down a river, and some he donated to children of friends. In my home we had eight birds in the house at one point. My Dad had decided he was going to breed birds. We had a room in the basement dedicated to birds for a time. I loved the birds. "Cody", the Nanday Conure became a family heirloom. He lived the longest of all the birds. My sister Audrey actually had him in her home, until a few years ago, when he had a heart attack. Cody could say Hello and I love you. I liked carrying him around on my shoulder. He would always climb to the top of my head. Although, the birds we had were not ducks, I always wished for a pet duck. A few years ago my wish came true. When driving to Kansas City we pulled over to a Farmers Market on the side of the road. When you drive with Kevin, you stop at any glimpse of something interesting along side the road. So we ended up getting two ducks, and later stopped again, and got baby chicks too. We had so much fun with the duck that Brooke had named "Digity", that we just had to do it again. Well, I had too. I asked Kevin three or four times last week, and finally on Friday after another mention of it, he went to a few farming stores on his lunch break to see if they had ducklings. They even said they would take the ducks back after a week if we wanted. This is how I convinced Kevin into it. I rushed to meet Kevin after work to pick out some ducks. Will started laughing out loud the first time he saw them. Brooke has had even more fun with them this year, than the last. She has named them "Silly" and "Feathery". She cut her unicorn's blanket that she got to match the one that a friend Terri had made her, and she swaddles the duck up in it and actually rocks the duck. She has been re-arranging the toys in the backyard to make what she is calling a " hotel " for the ducks. Will is having fun with the ducks too, although it is hard to catch even a moment with them without Brooke getting protective of them. Watching Brooke have so much fun with the ducks is so much better than I could have imagined, when I imagined and wished for a pet duck as a child.