Wednesday afternoon I decided I would be the creative mother and take my son to the local duck pond. Our zoo has a large pond, complete with waterfall, that our local ducks (and a few seaguls) like to congregate at. I figured since this was a free activity that is would suck up an afternoon of time and provide a little entertainment. Of course on the way to the duck pond I had to make a pit stop at the church. The boy was a bit miffed that we had not arrived at the duck pond, but all was well in the world when our fearless church secretary let him put mailing stickers all over her. Postal code aside we made our way to the duck pond.
One has never seen such delight on the face of a two year old. Swarms of ducks saw a gigantic target painted upon my child in the form of bread. Hundreds of ducks live at our local pond. This is not an exaggeration. I have video of the boy feeding the ducks with a few stray Mallards about a foot from him. The boy chased the ducks, he laughed at the ducks, he squealed like a school girl seeing a photo of Justin Timberlake without a shirt. I won?t post the video because the sound is actually me snorting with laughter in the background. Yeah, I snorted a little.
Once our bread was exhausted the ducks found no more favor in a small non-feathered thing that didn?t feed them so they departed. I thought we should go on a walk around the pond. This is all well and good until we get to a part of the pond with another swarm of ducks. The boy started to scream when I had to assure him he was in fact not Jesus and no, he couldn?t walk on water to see the ducks closer up. I am pretty sure that passers by thought I was trying to abduct this small child.
I calmed the child down and we continued upon our walk. Around the pond is a very large grassy area. Everytime we visit the zoo I look at this and think, “oh won?t that be nice to sit on and have nice picnic.” I always wondered why there weren?t more people doing just that. As my child takes off to frolic among the ducks I start to realize that, wow, the grass is awfully gravelly. And wow the grounds keepers do a fantastic job of keeping the grass so green and lush. Upon further inspection I realize that the ducks are pecking furiously at the ground and the gravel is there for them. Grit. The greeness… the bits of grass that the ducks eat while pecking at the grit and then distribute in the form of ducky fertilizer upon the ground. Nice. So… I guess we will be picnicing elswhere this summer.
Needless to say the afternoon was fun and we had a bit of fit pitching as we said good bye to the ducks. Now we are dealing with the boy?s authority that Steve the Cat is now responsible for all toilet flushing duties. (*snicker* I said duty)