so it's the first day of october, which in our subtropical neck of the palms means the temps dipped below 70 last night to put a "chill" on everything. our blood is so thin (or we are so delusional) that aedan wore a hooded sweatshirt (oh yes, with the hood ON), all zipped up, to school. gillian refused a sweater, saying she wanted to feel the chilly air on her arms because "it makes me realize that halloween is just around the corner."
to celebrate, rhys and i decided to take a walk down to the pond at the end of our street. oh, you didn't realize there was such a place so nearby? because i'm always talking about sweltering, working all the time, rearranging furniture, and basically just trying to survive? well, yes, after seeing how much fun we had this morning i do indeed feel a tiny twinge of guilt for not having done this more often. then as soon as i feel that twinge, i snap out of it, realizing that until yesterday we couldn't even breathe outside, let alone take a leisurely walk down the street.
oh, and by the way, don't worry, you won't be reading any more of these posts for at least another month, i'm sure, because by tomorrow it's supposed to be right back to sweltering.
but at least for today, we could pretend.
so, rhys in his red corvette, er, i mean little tykes car, and i in my 3/4 length sleeve sweater packed up the essentials (sippy cup with milk for him, coffee for me) and a bag of old bread and headed down to greet the ducks.
when we have done this in the past, it's been after school, late afternoon, like 5-ish. the ducks aren't really happy at that time of the day, and usually all we see are greedy ibises, who annoy the heck out of me, truth be told.
well, this morning, we found out that ducks are most certainly in a FABULOUS mood early in the day. maybe it's the weather. whatever it is, we started out small: one momma duck and her babies. small babies, with those little yellow spots. all fuzzy. i was in love.
then i noticed that another momma was coming from the left, and she had two bigger babies with her. they were almost full grown, but still had a bit of down left.
then from the right, another pair of ducks. then a couple of geese. then i saw from halfway around the pond, ducks were literally lined up, spaced a good distance apart, waddling their way toward us. unfortunately for them, we brought only 3 slices of bread, so the first little family (and only 1 really annoying ibis) got most of the snacks.
by the time we left, i bet there were 30 ducks/geese/ibises gathered 'round, quietly honking/quacking/squeaking at me, as if to say, "hey lady, i KNOW i saw you passing out bread earlier. what gives?"
it was a good way to welcome autumn.
2 comments:
I'm really impressed that your park as Mascovy ducks (the ones with the red wattly thing around their eyes). We had them when I was growing up.
those little ducklings are so cute! it is amazing how quickly you can gather a crowd of ducks with a bag of stale bread. hope you have a good weekend and that it isn't sweltering, it's been cold enough some nights for people to turn on the heat up here, i refuse to do it until snow or november 1st cheapskate that i am.
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