A SPRING EQUINOX FABLE

My first ducks, Akbar and Jeff, were rescued from the local feed store years ago. It was an impulsive act. I knew nothing whatsoever about keeping ducks. They were cheeping away in a box full of three-day old chicks, just the two of them, wondering how the hell they got in there. The owner of the store didn't know either, but she was happy to give them to me. I stuck them inside my sweatshirt and drove home.

I didn't know that they were females until, months later, I found their nest under a bay laurel, full of alabaster eggs. By then the ducks had bonded to me, having spent their first two months living in the the kitchen, following me all around. They ate from our hands and perched on the back of our golden retriever. Our youngest held them in her lap—or they sat on her shoulder and burrowed under her hair. We fell totally in love. But ultimately they bonded with one another and were inseparable. I never regretted my impulsive purchase and they never failed to make me smile. Years later, with many ducks, it’s a bit hard to see each distinct personality. But I know that each is an individual.

When I purchased Akbar and Jeff, I bought a sack of poultry mash, a sandy mix of genetically modified soybean meal and supplements of unknown origin. Though 70 billion ducks and chickens eat this world wide, it is not a natural diet. Their bills were designed for rooting about, chomping and crunching larger cuisine. I learned this watching the two as they began digging in the floor-bound houseplants. To their great delight, my youngest dug worms for them from the garden and fed them from the table... spaghetti, fresh peas, garden greens.

When they could maintain their body heat, I let them outside. They grew quickly and acclimated to the pond immediately. Like the young children they were, they were in a state of ecstasy with every new element they encountered, especially when turned loose in the garden. During the day, they could feed themselves and find water. Ducks are voracious omnivores, there was not much they wouldn't eat as long as it was moving and they could get it between their bills. Grasshoppers, frogs, all bugs, slugs... When they finished with the fish in the pond, they mutilated the acquatic plants. They nibbled on the greens but stayed away from the aromatics. However, their main activity was terrorizing the elderly cat and helping themselves to her food bowl.

The ducks were definitely the clowns of our large mixed-species family. They were perpetual toddlers. When released from their 'duck house' every morning, they came out flapping their wings and singing with great excitement to start the day. They splashed in the mud puddles after a rain like delighted children. They followed me through the garden, hot on my trail if I was planting or harvesting, definitely wanting to dig along and taste of whatever was going on.

At five months old, Akbar and Jeff began to lay eggs. Using their strong bills as shovels, they covered them over with leaves. Had I not wondered what they were excavating, I may not have found them.

Two years later, I found Akbar dead . She died in her sleep and looked serene. Jeff and I were equally shocked and sad. We sat with her all day. Jeff didn't eat. She didn't swim in the pond. She just sat quietly by Akbar. At dusk we buried Akbar under the bay laurel. Then Jeff went mad. At first she began to call, as when they became momentarily separated. But the sound seemed to me to be increasingly desperate. She spent the next day equally as frantic. By the third day she was circling the pond, honking coarsely, incessantly. She circled all day. I couldn't listen or watch. It was too painful. On day five, Farmer Anna, a covert animal rights rescuer called with two ducks in pretty bad shape. (They were 'retrieved' in the dead of night from a training farm for hunting dogs, the only ones in good enough shape to not be euthanized.) I said of course.

Cocoa and Rocco were juveniles, a female and a male. As with most of the ducks used for hunting practice at that farm, Cocoa had her leg deliberately broken. Rocco had an injured neck. (Can you set a duck's leg? Indeed you can.) Jeff seemed to immediately understand their injuries. With enormous patience she shepherded them about, herding them into the pond. However, she did not stop calling and sounded even more shrill. And her squawks were accompanied by manic darting movements when I appeared. She would charge at me, head down, when I came near. I felt personally blamed for Akbar's death.

The next month was insanely noisy. Though Cocoa and Rocco acclimated immediately, they soon joined in as Jeff's Greek chorus, quacking along, imitating her sounds. (Thank goodness that ducks tuck their heads under their wings and go silent once it is dark.) I could not understand why Jeff was still grieving. No matter what I tried, she seemed inconsolable, honking at me and everyone else who came near. One morning I released them from captivity and Jeff was silent. She saw me approach but sat quietly, preening her feathers between the two juveniles. They seemed to be waiting for her to squawk and when she didn't, neither did they. I didn't know what had changed. Had she suddenly, months after Akbar's death, finally stopped mourning?

And then I understood. For the past three months the new ducks had been Jeff's adopted babies. She wasn't grieving, she was being protective. I could only see it now that she was peaceful. Her charges had matured. They were now able to be on their own. She no longer needed to be vigilant, keeping danger at bay while warning the babies. I saw her frenzy in a whole new light and I marveled at her devotion and my myopic interpretation.

Our lives are sometimes like that, so emotionally colored by our own issues that we can't see the forest for the trees. I can get very involved in the crisis of the day, whether it is out in the world - which I cannot control - or within my own little world - which I pretend I can control. I can be enraged or despondent and I want to find a remedy. I want to name it, pin it down, and then act. For some of us, we have no choice but to keep following the tracks but many of us are not wedded to repeating old patterns and rituals. Spring affords a time to see things from a new perspective — our work, our families and friends, our passions and beliefs. The perfect time to re- examine our world. We can start over. A new beginning.

And this last word was written by my friend Annilee Oppenheimer...
Answering the call of spring does not cost money or take a lot of time. It requires only a mental shift of perception. We see the world with what Zen Master Shunrya Suzuki called “beginner's mind”—the ability to see the way a child sees—with fresh eyes and an open heart. Like the other day, when the house was empty and I decided to go into the shower stall with all my clothes on and chant every vowel with great abandon; just because I was curious to see what chanting in an echo chamber would sound like. Spring is the time where I am open to discovery, wonder, pleasure, and inspiration.

Part of this was previously published in Pomegranate Seeds, 2004.

©www.thesubversivefarmer.net.

In a previous lifetime, Zia Gallina worked as a botanist for the National Parks Service, on the C&O Canal outside of Washington D.C. (lecturing on wild indigenous and naturalized medicinal and culinary plants). She was also an adjunct professor teaching biology and environmental science at American University, Washington D.C. But she has always been a champion of small-scale biointensive farming, tagging behind Mother Nature, trying to stay as close as she can get.