Duckies!

Introducing Mrs. Feddle, Duckie-Duck, Fatsykins, Buttercup, Striker, Sir Eatsalot, and Godzilla, aka Admiral Drake.

This was going to be a nice little post about our seven new family members.

And then C took E and Z to a baseball game and left me with the task of fetching the ducklings from their outdoor pen where they spend the day, put them into a box, and carry them back inside into the large Rubbermaid that is still their nighttime home.

By the time I rounded them all up (after finally giving up on keeping my work clothes clean and crawling into their shit-strewn pen), the D in "duck" had been replaced by F and an "er" added to the end of the word. With "mother" for a prefix.

Anyway, Z has been begging for a duck for months and months and months.

So I showed C a picture of a duck house, from a book that shall remain nameless, which suggested that eight full-grown ducks could live inside and be wheeled around the yard, eating bugs and fertilizing the lawn, with nary an iota of human input.

After C built the house and we informed E and Z that they were getting ducks for their birthday, I ordered a duck raising book which said, in not so many words, "Don't be fooled by charlatans and four-season gardeners who suggest that ducks are really easy to take care of. In fact, they're quite a lot more maintenance than chickens."

Call me had. 

But E and Z are really, really happy. 

I guess that's what it's all about, right?

In any case, say "hello" to our ducks.