I'm taking an online course in Critical Care Nursing, which has me sitting in front of the computer for at least 8 hours a day. Needless to say, I am continually looking for distractions from the endless stream of calculating Cardiac Output and the Loop of Henle. At any rate, I had somewhat of a tumultuous day, and it's only 2:30pm Central Time.
It all started when I decided to let the ducks roam around the backyard during the day. I let them out of their hutch, then turned the hose on to fill up their pond, which is on a patio about one foot above the garden. I went inside, made myself breakfast, completely forgetting that I'd left the hose running. For those of you wondering, I had eggs sunny-side up with homemade salsa, Sriracha all on whole-wheat toast, which was totally delicious. Anywho, my sister called, I talked to her on the phone for a while, and poked my head out the back door. I didn't see the ducks anywhere, but I did notice that about 1/4 of the garden was completely flooded. "Holy crap!" I yelled, and cranked the hose shut. The cucumber/zucchini/pumpkin/watermelon plants, which I will now refer to as my Troubled Youths, were totally submerged by water. I thought the situation in that corner couldn't get any worse: first, crumbling, brown plants, then a near-drowning - it would be St. Fiacre's direct intervention if this corner ever survived.
At any rate, I poked around the patio while on the phone, noticing that the water in the garden had already disappeared after about a minute or two. Strange, I thought. I looked closer. Directly in the line of the cucumber patch, the patch that hasn't even shown the slightest bit of promise, all of the water was disappearing down a hole that was about 4 inches wide, and plunged deep into the ground. "G! There's a hole in the cucumber patch! A big, deep hole in the garden!" I squeaked to my sister over the phone. "Sounds like a mole," she told me. Once again, I'll remind readers that I know little to nothing about garden pests/weeds/soil/plants/-ing, so I gasped. Is this GARDEN CANCER?! Fortunately, she reassured me, told me that I'd probably just have to get a mole-a-cide and replant the cukes. I can do that. But imagine if I hadn't flooded the garden? I'd have only myself to blame for the lack of tzatziki in my life!
I went back inside, hit the books, and started up a few tests on the Critical Care website. The ducks, as it turned out, had camped themselves out directly outside of the sliding glass door next to the computer where I was working. As I answered questions, they ate ferns growing off of the deck, calmly quacking to each other as if to say, "I love a garden salad now and again."
The question on the screen was something about systemic vascular resistance when I saw it- the smallest flicker of red out of the corner of my eye. I turned towards the source of the movement, and there, sitting perched exactly five feet, behind the large fern my clueless birds were devouring was a FOX. About four feet from tip of the nose to tip of the tale, it pointed its narrow face towards my little guys, coiled on its haunches, braced to pounce. I jumped up as though my pants were on fire, ran to the sliding door, and tried to open the door. I panicked - it was locked, and I couldn't figure out how to open it. I began pounding on the glass, making enough noise that the fox darted in a different direction, but it was only attempting another angle of approach. By that time, I figured out the lock mechanism, wrenched the door open, and ran towards the red menace yelling, "Raaaawwwwrr!!!" I continued to bellow shouts in the fox's direction as he disappeared into the thick brush in our yard. I turned to the ducks and said, "You idiots! You have no idea how close you were to being a high-class brunch!" I drove them back up the hill and re-hutched them, all the while they clucked their complacent little happy noises. Stupid birds.
I realized at that point what a right-place-right-time day it's been so far. Had I not been sitting in the only seat in the entire house that looks out that window, I'd be hosing feathers off the deck right now. Had the ducks not decided to hang out in a place in the yard where they literally NEVER hang out, I'd be traipsing all over kingdom come looking for a beak here, a webbed foot there. Critical Care classes probably save lots of peoples' lives every day, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time in history it has ever saved the lives of fowl.
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