The other evening, I was watching the ducklings and peachicks go to bed in their different ways and, because I keep forgetting to take a chair or stool to sit on next to the yards, I just sat down on the ground.
The clothes I had on were my ‘city’ clothes – I looked in my files for photos that would go with this post but couldn’t find any that were dirty enough!
It has been fascinating to watch Queenie and the peachicks out and about. They roam freely now everywhere and are quite used to my presence. Sometimes they forage on the lawn just outside my office door where I can watch them and talk to them through the fly screen. It’s almost as if they have come over to say hello.
I still haven’t found a mate for Baby Turkey, but I promised him I would by next week and he perked up a little bit.
Godfrey and Zaruma, despite being male, continue to guard the ducklings. They are out and about for much of the day now too, always with the two male mothers guarding them – Godfrey with hisses and Zaruma with a little smile on his funny face.
This morning my mother came over and we cried together and it was like a gift of rain on a rose bush thought dead, but now budding again; it was like a single dewdrop until you see there are hundreds of them; it was like a hidden stream, full of pebbles and tadpoles and lilies and, well (I can’t help myself here!) ducklings.
Motherhood is a powerful thing.
The little duckling in the centre of this photo is distinct from the other two because s/he is smaller and paler. But, after what I witnessed the other evening, I have decided to call this duckling Michael Jackson.
I had put the gang, including ducklings, into their yard for the night, then turned the hose on the avocado tree which is right behind Ming’s shed where he now lives. As soon as I turned the hose on, Michael Jackson squeezed through the fence and began swimming in the growing puddle. The other two ducklings (the ‘Twins’ because they are identical) followed Michael Jackson to the puddle, so I had to let Godfrey out again in order to herd them back in. He gave me his usual ‘look’ – a combination of ferocity and disdain.
At that very moment, Ming began to play his guitar very loudly and the birds and I got a bit of a fright. Well, little Michael Jackson went crazy and I nearly ran to Ming’s shed to tell him to stop the noise until I realized that the duckling was actually dancing! It ran around in circles, twirled around in the puddle of water, threw itself at the twins and frolicked madly. When Ming stopped playing his guitar for a few moments, the duckling just stood still, as if waiting, then, when Ming resumed, the whole happy dance thing happened again. It’s one of the funniest things I have ever seen and I wish I had it on video.
Godfrey watched fondly, as I did, then I turned the hose off and he herded Michael Jackson and the twins back into the yard.
The only lonely one now is Baby Turkey because we lost Bubble, his main companion months ago. Baby Turkey now prefers to be in his own yard, away from the happiness of the geese and ducks. He sleeps a lot but when he gets up he still looks so sad. I have decided to try and find him a mate, a female turkey, so that he will be happy again and am hoping that the place where I got the ducklings will have one to spare. They have turkey chicks so maybe they will sell me one of the mothers.
Baby Turkey’s loneliness is a constant reminder of Anthony’s. I have not been allowed into the nursing home for a few days because I have a chest infection, so Ming and my mother have been in several times and I am relying on phone chats with Ants. He doesn’t understand that I am sick; he just seems to think I am neglecting him and I got a phone-call the other morning from one of the nurses, to say he didn’t want to get out of bed. I ended up speaking to him but he was quite incoherent. This is the first time I have known him to be like this in the morning because this usually happens in the evening.
I don’t know why the quote ‘This is how it is’ resonates so powerfully for me; after all, it is a statement of the obvious. I like it though because it beckons some sort of response, it curls around a sort of question, and it invites a sort of acceptance.
Sort of!
Godfrey and I have agreed to disagree, and I still love him.
The four ducklings are, unfortunately, now three because the biggest little one kept adventuring off by himself, including getting out of the pen when our dogs were out. (To explain, we let the dogs, Jack and Blaze, out every morning for their run, then put them back in their yard at 1pm which is when we let the geese, duck, ducklings and turkey out. In the evening, once the birds are in their pens and Queenie and chicks in the tree, we let the dogs out again.)
Two days ago we found the little duckling’s corpse on the driveway. He had obviously gotten out of the pen when the dogs were out. Or it may have been a fox or crow. It would have been very quick but that’s not much comfort. He was a nonconformist from the start and didn’t hang with the gang very well. Here he is a few days ago, always on the other side of the fence or turning in the opposite direction to the others. He was a wanderer.
One of the hardest things about free-ranging birds of any sort is that casualties are inevitable. Ever since we began to accumulate various birds, I have learned this the hard way and I guess that’s why I got four ducklings instead of two. And I didn’t name them for the same reason although, if this little one had survived, I would have called him ‘Peppy”.
Since Peppy’s demise, Godfrey (head gander) and Zaruma (head drake) and all of the other geese have been much more vigilant in protecting and surrounding the remaining three ducklings. Godfrey is particularly attentive – he is like a male mother! He has now bitten me twice when I have come too close. Zaruma, on the other hand, just follows the ducklings constantly, wagging his tail madly. I haven’t seen him so happy since we lost his mate, Tapper. The rest of the ‘gang’ are also heavily involved in the care of the ducklings and hate losing sight of them for even a second. Godfrey and Zaruma are pictured above leading the ducklings (out of the frame, but just behind them) to the yard.
Here is a picture of Woodroffe, Seli and Pearl beckoning the ducklings out from under a shed.
Once the ducklings are a bit bigger – and they are growing fast – they will no longer be able to squeeze through the fence of the yard they go to bed in. In the meantime Ming and I will have to be much more watchful when it comes to the dogs.
Nature can be beautiful but it can also be cruel.
I don’t know how not to be haunted by the car accident last October. That Ming was at fault is a no-brainer, but that five beautiful children were injured is only slightly alleviated by the relief that they are all okay now, physically.
Psychologically, I don’t know. One niece emailed me to say she was shooting basketball hoops better than ever before and she quoted ‘you have to fall before you fly’. Her younger brother’s broken leg has healed and he can play football again and his twin sister’s wise smile shows me she is okay too. My other niece, who was in a spinal brace for three months, is now back to school, has a new kitten, and is enjoying life again. Her best friend (also in the accident) has fully recovered from a complicated arm fracture.
But we, the parents, are all still haunted by the shadow of death that loomed that night; the phone-call from Ming, the mutual panic, the helicopter taking my younger brother with his son to the city, the screaming cries of my sister-in-law and my shocked mother on the front veranda as I threw myself into the car and drove madly around the district, unable to focus on where the accident had happened even though it wasn’t far from home.
I remember stopping the car finally and ringing my friend who immediately went to the scene of the accident. And I also remember – vividly – hoping that if anyone were to die, it would be Ming, not the other kids. Obviously I would never tell Ming this but it’s true and I still maintain that, but am unsure of course.
How the hell do people cope when someone is killed, or permanently injured, in this kind of stupid accident? And how, as a family, do we cope with the aftermath of what has happened to us? I don’t know.
I have made so many mistakes in my communication with some loved ones over this that I feel like giving up and just succumbing to absolute despair. When I stopped the car that night, unable to find the accident site, I wanted so much to just die myself – such a coward I guess. I was terrified!
Ming’s phone-call that night: “Mum, I’ve had an accident; everyone is alive.” His sobbing voice will haunt me forever. Okay, so I probably shouldn’t be dwelling on this but how can I not?
So I watch the new ducklings until the haunting feelings go away.
One of the four ducklings is bigger than the others and tends to be a bit remote (well it keeps getting onto the other side of whatever fence is in front of it). I’m assuming it is a male and that the others are females. I hope so because this is not just about heart-twinkling – I want some eggs!
What Mr bigduckling doesn’t seem to realize is that he is inside the yard and the (let’s assume they are) ‘girls’ are outside and free. He is actually in the yard where Queenie looks after her peachicks and he keeps stealing their food.
I have had a few scares already; at dusk last night I couldn’t find the ducklings and assumed the worst (crows, foxes drowning), but then this morning Ming (who didn’t even know I’d got the ducklings) said, sternly, “So I see you got four.” Delighted, I ignored his disapproving frown and raced out to see them. Later in the day Ming himself panicked a bit when he found them unable to get out of the pond. The pond is a long way from the yards for little ducklings so I am amazed they even got there. I have now filled it to the brim and put some branches in so they have ways to get out. Ming had picked them all out of the pond but said he won’t be doing it again – “The birds are your responsibility, Mum,” he said, with a breathtaking smile.
As I was heading back to the house, I was shocked to see Gutsy9 actually flirting with one of the peacocks. G9 is only 13 months old. I told her off after I took the photos, but she doesn’t take much notice of my advice these days.
I told G9 to pull her head in so she did. Then she bit my finger.
Yesterday afternoon, the four new ducklings settled into their pen, then got straight out again!
As I was trying to herd them back in, Gutsy9 followed, extremely curious, but also jealous as she kept biting the bottom of my jeans as if to say, “hey, what about me?”
The gang welcomed the ducklings with a chorus of gleeful honking, then quieter little sighing sounds. Predictably, Godfrey, the head gander, hissed at me threateningly. He has very strong paternal instincts!
But the happiest of the gang was Zaruma, our only remaining duck. His mate, Tapper (the one who used to actually scale the yard fence and get out), was killed by a fox last year, so he has been very lonely. His joy was amazing; he can’t quack for some reason but he was madly wagging his tail. He’s the one on the right with the red face.
The alpacas, Uluru and Okami, settled protectively on the other side of the fence.
Even Baby Turkey became interested in a pecking sort of way.
Woodroffe and Diamond exchanged raised eyebrows.
The ducklings were very curious about the peachicks.
But they were much more interested in their first swimming lesson.
It is over ten years since I completed my PhD in cultural studies; my thesis focused on the importance of listening to the storying of people with Alzheimer’s Disease. It was not a scientific thesis (and at the time I had no idea what the difference between qualitative and quantitative research was); it was more of an exploratory study of the art and gift of listening.
My interest in how listening might help/give comfort was inspired by the various patients in the nursing home in which I worked at the time – in particular a guy who I called ‘Joe’ who seemed to think I was his long-deceased fiancee.
After I graduated, I rewrote the thesis as a book and it was published – We’ll be married in Fremantle. This is not a plug for the book, as it was published way back in 2001, and not a best seller by any means, although it was shortlisted for various prizes for nonfiction.
I remember Anthony being so proud of me, for the PhD and then the book (Ming was a little kid then and Anthony was in good health), but I also remember, after all those years of academic study, how the simple art of listening would always be important to me.
Listening isn’t as easy as it sounds because sometimes it is difficult to shut up, refrain from giving advice etc. I make this mistake all the time with Ants and Ming (for different reasons, obviously), but now I am re-learning my own advice – to just listen.
Tonight, Ming said, “Mum, just listen to me!” and I did, and I shut my mouth, and I learned more about my open-hearted son than I have for ages.
Okay, before I get too sentimental, we are getting some ducklings tomorrow to keep our only duck company – I am so excited!
This morning Ming and I had an appointment with the prison chaplain, a beautiful man who is the Anglican priest who, coincidentally, helped enable Anthony’s admission into the nursing home two years ago, and a good friend of my mother’s.
We met in his home and he did a wonderful job of demystifying prison (just in case Ming has to go there), and allayed many of our fears and concerns about things like violence, drugs, rape (obviously my worst fear). He told us that if the worst scenario (prison) eventuated, when Ming is finally sentenced, he will be in no danger as long as he doesn’t get involved with various unsavoury activities (drugs, alcohol etc.) If a prison sentence happens, Ming would undoubtedly be put in the low security section, and given a job of some sort (kitchen or gardening etc.)
While the three of us talked about the improbable possibility of a prison sentence, the prison chaplain must have wondered a bit about the difference between Ming’s reaction to this information (curious) and mine (tears – just a few; I got hold of myself), but he took it all in his stride and spoke calmly and wisely to us.
It was a bit terrifying for me to hear about the prison situation, but now I am no longer so afraid, thanks to this wonderful, wonderful man/priest. Ming’s reaction to our meeting took hours to happen. He was calm when he handed in his resume for a job at a restaurant, calm having lunch with me, calm during a Centrelink appointment, calm during a visit to Anthony while I did some errands.
But then, on the way home, we had one of those horrible yelling-at-each-other arguments (been having a few lately) but, once home, we decided to talk it through and we did this for over an hour until we sorted it out:
Me: So what is your main problem with me at the moment?
Ming: Your geese poop on my shed doorstep and your peacocks poop on the car!
Me: So you are more upset about the birds than the possibility of prison?
Ming: No, yes, no!
We are both fine again now, having sorted a lot of things out and I am so thankful for the fact that he and I can be honest with each other and get over/through these wrangles but it is so exhausting!
I think I might need to visit that wonderful priest again – soon. His name is Brian and he is a legend!
jmgoyder 