If you have been with me for a while, you know that I like birds. If there is one thing I miss, it's all the feeders we had put out and the many varieties of bird we have seen in the years since. Here, in Tampa, they do have birds, but our yard is so tiny, there is no place to put feeders without opening an all-you-can-eat Squirrel Buffet. You simply cannot get far enough away from a tree or a fence but what they can jump over to any feeder you put out. I toyed with the idea of one of those feeders that sends the interlopers on a tilt-a-whirl ride until the finally go flying, but as I said, the houses and the fences are too close. All we would hear all day long is thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Then there would be the problem of punch-drunk squirrels reeling across the yard.
Our neighbor has a couple of very tall oak trees. With a tall stepladder, he has fastened two long strings to branches a good fifteen feet high with a feeder hanging from each. A squirrel cannot go down the long string, nor can he jump far enough—at least not yet. Finally, we have a few more birds around us. We also have Muscovy Ducks in our neighborhood and they have begun flocking to the feeders to eat the fallen seed—a whole "raft" of ducks, which I have discovered is the collective noun for ducks in the water. If you are not familiar with them, Muscovy Ducks are the Ugly Ducklings of the species—actually the ducklings look much better than the adults. Those cute little yellow ducklings grow into a wide range of coloring from all black to all white with various mixes of pattern in between, but their distinguishing characteristic is a large, fleshy, red patch around the base of the bill and eyes called a caruncle. If you see red, you are seeing a Muscovy Duck.
These ducks are excellent at pest control. They will eat the bugs out of your lawn and also do a number on flying insects like flies, gnats, and mosquitoes. We have seen them at work, in fact, as they cross our front lawn to get to the fallout from the neighbor's feeder. Sometimes a couple of them will even stay in our lawn while the others go on to the neighbor's. For every bug they eat, that's less pesticide our lawn needs and the more comfortable we are when we sit on the patio.
They began laying eggs in the spring. Brooke and Nathan had a couple of clutches between their driveway and the front door—18 eggs in all. Mama discovered quickly that she needed to move the babies as soon as she could because she was about a foot from a rising garage door and a couple of fat car tires. All she left behind were empty shells.
We had our first encounter with the ducklings as they came down the south side of our house one morning while we were sitting on the back porch, the west side, drinking coffee. Mama did not realize that she had found a dead end street. The subdivision fence walls our backyard, and the north side of the yard has no outlet thanks to the neighbor's fence. We sat and waited until finally, here she came with her babies behind her, cautiously peering at us as she came back around the back porch. She kept turning back every foot or two, realizing she was in a bad situation with no escape. Keith had to go as far as possible on the porch so it would seem like he was behind her, then bang on the porch wall in order to encourage Mama to keep going. Meanwhile, I sat as still as possible so I wouldn't scare her. As she turned on the west side of the porch, she picked up the pace and her ducklings waddled as fast as their short little webbed feet would go. Soon she was back on the south side headed the correct way to the neighbor's fallen seed.
Pay attention, parents. Those ducklings went wherever Mama led them. They had no idea if it was a safe place or a dangerous place. They didn't care whether there were big, bad monsters there or nice people who just liked to watch ducklings. They didn't even know if there would be food there or not. All they knew was that where Mama went was where they wanted to be.
I watched another Mama and her ducklings yesterday. When Mama was finished eating, she left. So did her babies. She walked across the only straightaway in our neighborhood where some of the neighbors hit 45 on this narrow street lined with parked cars and where human children also play. Some neighbors don't care about anything but getting from one place to another as quickly as they can. Keith has been known to go out into the street when the other neighbor's children are playing to wave the speeders down. But he wasn't home that day as Mama Duck led her babies across the street. I held my breath until they were all safe across.
It seems to me that some parents have no idea where they are leading their children. It seems that some believe they can let them run wild and they will somehow miraculously become kind, generous, polite, self-disciplined adults at some magic age in the future. They won't. They will be just as poorly behaved, ill-mannered, and undisciplined as adults. If you shield them from all the consequences of their misbehavior, they will be shocked when society makes them pay. Oh, but my husband could tell you stories for hours of the young people who wound up on probation but somehow thought they didn't have to follow the rules and eventually wound up in prison. Yes, it can be exactly that serious—kids who came from good families in good neighborhoods and who went to private schools and sometimes church, but who were never taught to behave, to respect the rights of others, and the simple fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, not in real life.
I watched ducklings leave a meal because Mama was finished. Whatever Mama does, whatever Daddy does, whatever they allow, that is what your children will do. Remember that.
Take these commands to heart and keep them in mind, tying them as reminders on your arm and as bands on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them while sitting in your house, walking on the road, or when you are about to lie down or get up. Also write them upon the doorposts of your house and gates so that you and your children may live long on the land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors—as long as the sky remains above the earth Deut 11:18-21.
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