Nearly five months ago an SUV rammed my home: repairs, inside and out, are extensive and seem to be taking forever.
Sunnybank is still in a state of disarray. We must climb a tall ladder to enter the house, as part of the front porch and the stairs were destroyed, and the harsh winter has stalled rebuilding.
There’s so much dust coating everything inside that I find myself coughing if I move too fast and stir it up. Piles of gritty clothing and dull-looking furniture are scattered all around the dining room and library floor. Dismantled beds are still stacked against the bedroom walls, so I sleep on the couch. Spreads and blankets will be hauled to the cleaners: all that bulk would be too much for my elderly washer. It would sigh and die.
The plasterer finished on Wednesday; the walls and ceilings look wonderful.
The painting is nearly done.
There is so much that wants attention that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. But I know the worst is over. By next weekend, if all goes well, the cleaning team, with me serving as the fetch-and-carry dogsbody, will begin to make the house habitable again.
A reassuring annual event keeps me laughing when I tip toward despair: Romeo and Juliet Mallard are back. They snog enthusiastically by the big garden fountain, oblivious to peeping people. When I walk by, the lovebirds will move languidly aside to let me pass, then carry on with ducky endearments.
Over the years we’ve learned to accommodate each other. I rake; Romeo is rarely ruffled. (Four years ago, when he’d decided I was too close, he attacked my ankles. I yelled with shock and pain and stomped about, making such a fearsome racket he was too stunned to quack. I threatened to add him to my crispy duck recipe; I radiated furious, because it bloodyhurt! Apparently it was an impressive enough display of “NO” that Romeo has modified his parameters. I’ve not had trouble since.
Juliet, eyes fogged by love, sees only him.
Sometimes, when the sun peeps out, contented murmurs can be heard, topped with one or two hoarse quacks, as they happily amble to grass patches he thinks are warmer, there to settle in.
Yesterday, when my garden helper walked in the back gate, Romeo balanced high on webbed toes and quacked an alarm: this invader didn’t belong! He kept glancing at me as if to say, Well? Toss him out!
“Nonsense!” I admonished him; “He’s here to rake with me, so get used to it. Remember: you’re the guests!”
Annoyed, Romeo flapped off toward Juliet, muttering, and spread his wings to herd her along to a more distant spot. She smiled, and shifted obediently, duckishly devoted to him.
Juliet often places her bill on his back…Ah, ducks in love.
But, there was a bit of a kerfluffle in the Fairy Garden.
Josh and I were raking away when he said, tentatively, “What should I do about this duck I almost raked? She doesn’t look right to me…”
I looked. It was Harriet, the unlucky duck I’d seen yesterday sitting smack in the middle of the flowerbed, head down, apparently unable to move without pain. But when Les and I’d looked for her later, she’d vanished. What a relief!
Today, though, here she was again in the same place, looking pathetic. She sat right out in the open garden, perfectly blended into heaps of wet leaves, showing no fear of the giant rake-claws that had almost whacked her. Wait! Could she be nursing eggs? But there was nothing.
What should I do? Ring a veterinarian? Leave her there to die? One wing had an odd cant. I moved closer. She didn’t seem to care. Just before I touched her she wearily rose, and very, very slowly, in a half-crouch, waddled behind the air conditioner, out of sight. A cat may have crunched her leg, I thought, miserably. If I approached her again she might further injure herself struggling back there…
“Josh, lets finish this work; it’s sleeting now, and the weather could get worse. I’ll think about what to do. Darn! I wish Les were here!”
Incredibly, the big garden door opened and - Ta-da! There he was! (Sometimes life almost makes sense.)
“Les! Harriet, that injured duck we couldn’t find yesterday, has crept behind the air conditioner; can you help me ease her out so I can take her to the vet?”
He peered behind the big structure for a while, then turned to me, chuckling. “Harriet’s nesting! I can just make out one egg under her. There could be more…That ‘poor me’ posturing is meant to distract you from discovering her nest. And it worked, didn’t it?
She’s just fine.”
Josh and I high-fived, but…where was her other half? (I’d dubbed her absent mate ‘Quackhead.’) For four hours we raked on, but he never showed. It made me sad. She shouldn’t be alone out here in the cold, with children on the way…
Today, though, Les popped into the house, grinning. “I found Quackhead nodding off in the pond by the folly. He’ll relieve her eventually, I suppose.”
Wow! That featherbrain was seventy-five feet away in the main garden! A monsterman had nearly raked his wife gone while he’d snored there in the weak sun.
Huh. I wasn’t impressed. Q was ducking his responsibilities.
But Les reckons the word is out. People in this garden are safe. The lady’s scary only when billed. So don’t.
Maybe that’s why Harriet had kept her mouth shut when I’d reached for her!
Sometimes ducks are pretty smart.