Duck a la'orange or ...?

While I’m not much of a gourmand, I do like a well-prepared duck. A la’orange or with cherry sauce. In fact, at Donna’s and my wedding dinner, I made certain that duck was on the menu — just for me! Yes, I can be a bit self-centered.

Lately, though I’ve been enjoying another kind of duck. As in the ducks that come to visit us almost every day. They’ve been coming for over a month now and are getting friendlier.

Yesterday was a good duck day. It was a nice sunny afternoon and I decided to take the book* I was reading for the Gallant Farm Literary and Cowpie Society out to the patio. Thanks to my not very efficient ticker, I am often chilled so a sit in the sun whilst reading sounded good. I poured myself a glass of water, pulled on my ball cap to protect my bald pate, picked up the book and went and sat in one of the rocking chairs. I was enjoying a nice read when I looked up to see the three ducks waddling up toward the flower bed surrounding the patio. I put down the book to watch them.

At first, as is their custom, they pecked around the flower bed. There are five bird feeders hanging above the flower bed and the visiting birds are not the neatest eaters. Lots of seed falls into the flower bed. Then they got more adventurous, as they have been the last week or so. Up on the patio they came, sticking to the edge. I resumed reading. Then, I glanced down. One of them was down by my chair pecking at some birdseed that Donna had thrown out on the patio. I looked at him. He looked at me. He evidently felt the seed was more interesting, so went back to his feeding.

Soon, all three of them were surrounding me and wandering all over the patio. For the next half hour, I read while they gobbled up all the seeds they could find. Then, I looked at the three wise ducks, they looked at me, waggled their tail feathers, and hopped off the patio, and meandered across the lawn to rest in the shade of a big evergreen.

While I still like duck a la’orange, I think I’m coming to like duck a la’patio more.