Duck, Duck... Duck, Duck... Duck, Duck, 7 DUCKS!

I purposefully didn't blog about this tragic event when it happened but on Tuesday, July 21st we lost the beloved ducks, Joey and Campbell to what we now believe was a mountain lion. It was quite sad around here but we have seven new feathered, billed, webbed members of our family.

Hours after my grandpa realized Joey and Campbell had been killed he ordered three ducks. Hours after that happened I had them named Eliza, Jane, and Sebastian. Yesterday marked the first Duck Day. My grandpa said the post office would be calling him as early as six in the morning to alert him of the duck delivery. Thus I was up at 5:30 a.m. but we didn't get word on the ducks until 8 a.m. He and I drove to the post office as soon as we got the anxiously-waited-for-phone-call. We walked into the deserted lobby and had no idea where we were supposed to pick them up until we heard muffled quacking. We were presented with a box slightly larger than a shoe box with several air holes on every side. What I still believed was the five of us, got into my car and went to get my grandpa's staple, a gas station cappuccino. On the way there he had opened a corner of the box but as I was driving I thought I was only seeing the three ducklings we had prepared for.

We got home and my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, Sam and Camille and I, all pajama-clad, gathered around the table on the deck as my grandpa opened the lid of the box. And to our surprise we saw 7, count them, 7 ducklings! July 7th (Duck Day) brought us 7 ducks! Three of the ducks are yellow but will get white feathers as they mature and the other 4 are black with yellow spots and black bills and black feet and eventually will resemble mallards. My grandma uttered her customary "Oh, Roger!" that she says every time he does something Grandpa-like. You know that part of 101 Dalmatians where the wife exclaims, "Oh, Roger!", well Brytten and I thought it was our grandma saying it to our grandpa when we were little.

Just look at that concentration!

Sam the Duck Whisperer

This is one of my favorite pictures ever!

With the unveiling of the surplus of ducks, Duck Day began. Sam was quite the natural with them and gingerly picked them up and lowered them beak first into a plastic cup of water for them to take a drink. 7 must be a lucky number for my grandpa because not only does he have 7 ducks that needed to be named but he has three daughters and four grandchildren so everyone got to name a duck! My mom named hers LuLu (I decided both L's should be capitalized), Jackie named hers Kiwi, Jodie named hers Cousteau, Sam named his Tobio (after a Japanese character from Astro Boy which I thought was quite clever for a six-year-old), Camille named hers Camille (now we have a little redhead girl, a chicken, and a duck all named Camille), Brytten named hers Harper, and I named mine Pomegranate.

My grandpa now has a total of 40 birds! 33 chickens and 7 ducks!

Duck Day took on a whole new meaning when I was reading the newspaper and came across an article about people helping a mother duck. Then on Twitter on of the trending topics was #replaceawordinafamousquotewithduck. One of my favorites was "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this duck."

The Rapid City Journal knew to celebrate Duck Day!

Now all that is left to making the ducks feel absolutely at home is my grandpa and I setting out to restore the duck house that once again will be filled with joy.

On a bird-related note, one afternoon when I came in for a popsicle after freckling in the hammock I came across this scene. Earlier this year my grandpa traded out 23 of his chickens for better egg-layers. These new chickens are finally up to their laying capabilities and we are once again bringing in one to two dozen eggs a day. My grandpa brings the eggs in to the house in a green metal pail and my grandma washes them and puts them into recycled egg cartons to sell to people in Spearfish. The way in which these eggs were placed on the cupboard makes me think it was intentional by my grandpa...

A smiley face of eggs!