How a baby duck ruined my Ave Maria Lionheart

[cheaphumidors]

That's right, last week it was Gatorade popsicle ruining my cigar enjoyment, this weekend it was a baby duck. I believe the universe is conspiring against me...

There I was, Saturday afternoon on the back porch in my comfy smoking chair. I had just cracked a new book and lit an Ave Maria Lion heart. Life was good.

Then I see one of my dogs, Maxine, sniffing under one of the trees in the backyard. I figured she had just left one of her favorite sticks back there so I went back to reading. When I next looked up, there was my massive, ferocious, vicious, killer of a dog.... (yes, she is sweet to humans and other dogs, but any non-K9 being that enters our backyard is instantly killed, she is up to 9 squirrels and 17 opossums and one attempt on a cat)... nuzzling a baby duck. Not eating it, not killing it, nuzzling it.

My first thought, of course, is HOW THE HECK DID A DUCK GET HERE?! Our backyard is completely fenced in, with a 7ft fence and we are nowhere near a pond. So I did a quick perimeter check, made sure there wasn't a hole in the fence where baby ducks were pouring in, then did a search around the neighborhood looking for a mommy duck. Nothing.

So now I am stuck with a terrified duckling to contend with. Everyone knows that I am a sucker for animals. My husband and I were once the adoptive parents of a baby opossum for a few days until we could get her to a rescue facility. NOT DOING THAT AGAIN. So my husband and I jumped in the car and drove off to the local pet store (where we met the woman who ran the opossum rescue all those years ago), crossing our fingers that the opossum lady would take a duck.

Well, the opossum lady wasn't working that day, but, it just so happened, a woman who runs a BIRD rescue WAS working that day. She looked the poor thing over and noted that it was injured and the injuries explained how the little shit got in my backyard. A fricking hawk dropped her. She had wounds from the talons of a bird of prey on her. So this tiny little duck was just swimming in a pond, minding it's own business and a hawk swoops up and grabs her, flies her a couple of miles to my backyard, drops her 20 feet to her should be death and then flies off. Then my killer dog carries her away and brings her to me. I believe that is the luckiest duck on the planet.

So after all this, I went back to the porch and found that the cigar had split up the side due to sitting out for a few hours in the Florida humidity. Screw that duck

[Upstatemax]

You can always light up another Ave Maria. But that is story that you can enjoy for a lifetime!

Just don't laugh about it while smoking a cigar. With your luck lately that hawk will come back, for you...

[Old Smokey]

Now even the hawks are bombing you dinner. Should have smoked it.

Very cool story!

[fiddlegrin]

Ha__!

Reminds me of a joke that ends:

"Two bucks for a Fxxxing Duck!

[Zeede]

Any reason the duckling couldn't have sat in a box on a warm blanket while you finished the cigar? I mean, priorities

[cheaphumidors]

Any reason the duckling couldn't have sat in a box on a warm blanket while you finished the cigar? I mean, priorities

Well, it was 6:30 and the pet store closes at 7 so... yea! I wasn't about to hang on to the thing for a night.

[jhedrick83]

You could have kept it. My grandmother once had a pet duckling she got at the Tennessee Valley Fair. It supposedly followed her around the house like she was it's mother and the duckling swam in the bathtub every night. Once it hit a year old, she took it back to the pond at the fairgrounds and released it.

[T.E.Fox]

Lucky duck!

[cheaphumidors]

You could have kept it. My grandmother once had a pet duckling she got at the Tennessee Valley Fair. It supposedly followed her around the house like she was it's mother and the duckling swam in the bathtub every night. Once it hit a year old, she took it back to the pond at the fairgrounds and released it.

I had a pet duck as a kid and I adored her, until she was eaten by an alligator...
But three dogs and a baby duck in my house? No. Just no

[jhedrick83]

I had a pet duck as a kid and I adored her, until she was eaten by an alligator...
But three dogs and a baby duck in my house? No. Just no

Oh my!