THE BEST LAID PLANS -PT. 1

 

       I never planned to have a farm. Not once did I ever think, “Gee, I’d like to find out what it’s like to nurse a dying rooster back to life, get up at midnight to give a goat an injection of antibiotics, open and drain an abscess, give a duck a therapy bath. No, I had hopes of finding the right person and settling down in the suburbs to raise a family.   A farm was once the farthest thing from my mind. However, Mr. Right never came along. But the farm did.

    Things started surreptitiously enough. While I was volunteering at the library one morning, the then Assistant Director came in carrying a storage container with three fuzzy ducklings inside. Their mother had left the nest before they had hatched, and she was leaving for vacation. Would somebody be willing to raise them in her stead?

I couldn’t help glancing in at them and as I did, I read the accompanying note. Half Mallard and half Indian Runner, free to a good home. Indian Runner? I pondered this. The only duck breeds I knew were Mallards and those really cute white ducks. Oh, and those ducks with the fleshy faces. Weren’t they Pekins? Indian Runners. What on earth kind of a duck was that?  I had to admit, those ducklings were awfully cute.

Before I left the library early that afternoon, I told Alice that if nobody wanted the ducklings by the end of the day, I would be glad to give them a home. I felt confident saying this as I was sure that somebody would come in, see them, and be as enchanted as I was. There was no chance whatsoever of these ducklings becoming mine. At five thirty that evening, the phone rang, and Fern Ridge Library came up on the Caller ID. I groaned. I knew exactly who was calling and why.

     A mad rush to the library shortly before closing followed so I could bring home the two ducklings who were left (somebody took the third) and quickly check out a pair of books on the care of ducks. I was going to need to cram. I knew nothing where ducks were concerned. I also was going to have to figure out how to house them and, how I was going to explain them to my sister with whom I live. Thus, began the era of Junior and Jellybean, named for a pair of street hustlers on a TV we enjoyed watching at the time, and thus began an adventure I am still on to this day.