Knitting In Public

We have had a wonderful adventure over the last month. I was just thinking about pulling weeds and getting ready to plant some flowers in the garden by my front door, when we discovered this:

A Mallard duck had decided to make her nest in my garden! We decided to let the garden go this year, so Mama could keep her nest. This photo was taken on May 19, 2007. Within a day or two, Mama had covered the eggs with leaves and twigs, then started leaving bits of down. Soon she settled in for the long wait. Occasionally she would leave the nest, and C & D went out to check the egg count…..9! We have awaited our duckling babies, envisioning a duckie parade down the driveway… so yesterday, we looked out to see this:

Babies! (Look closely, in front of Mama’s breast.) Over the course of the day, we managed to see at least 4 or 5 of them. At times, they would be beside Mama, and at other times, she would have them tucked beneath her again. So, technically, the babies were still born ” in the spring.” Today is the Summer Solstice, and the nest is empty and Mama and the ducklings are gone. They slipped away without us noticing, so we missed the parade. We’ll be checking out the pond to see if that is where our little family has gone.

Now it’s time to get back to knitting - Summer of Socks starts today, so I need to get started on my Summer Solstice socks!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.