Pause & See

spring fertility

giving egg gifts to raven

wait...see what might hatch

orah

***UPDATE***

Last Weeks Tree!

 I try to see something new each day. The art of seeing is essential to any creative work in my humble opinion.  My favorites are the ones that stop me in my tracks!  Like so many folks I have a very busy mind that I struggle to quiet.  By creating this practice it has given me many opportunities to pause and be with a new wonder.  I love to wonder about wonders.  These little seeings can be just the jolt my creative process needs to get out of a rut.  But mostly, they provide a pause which is that moment of peace I need to heal from a frustration. These seeings are grounding for me and bring me to the present.  I will admit to laughing out loud with joy over some of my discoveries, they are a moments of childlike wonder!  

"When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky"     ~~~Buddha

~~~~~~~~~~~My Lively Life~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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"Be Joyful because it is humanly possible"~~~Wendell Berry

☼ Forest & Field Happenings ☼ Everything is Just Duckie!

Egg #1

Awhile since I last talked about the ducks.  It has been a bit of a frustrating season.  It seemed to take forever for egg laying to begin.  Finally, this week I got my first smallish duck egg.  Two eggs today!   

I lost 4 ducks to a mysterious predator.  I am down to 8 ducks but, that number seems to be holding.  They were being picked off near their duck pond.  I thought if I could get them to go into the big pond they would be safer during the day.  It was a bit of a rodeo herding them...and then when Runa & I finally got them up in the big pond they would all run back to their little pond.  We had a very dry September and the little duck pond dried up.  THAT, definitely, convinced the girls to use the big pond.  I haven't lost another duck since then.  I have been locking them up earlier and I never leave them out if I go away for the day.  Luckily, for them I am home a lot.  

Duck Herding

Fortunately, the duck pond dried up during DH's vacation.  So he had fun with his tonka toy!

A few tense moments avoiding frogs and there were 2 crayfish rescue missions!

The weather remained dry the pond wasn't filling even though he hit a spring.   DH got the bright idea to use a hose and gravity feed water from the big pond to the little pond.  Three days later it was full!  We are keeping the hose running until freeze up...which doesn't seem to be coming.  We haven't had a hard frost yet!

The duck drama has died down and with the warm weather we have taken some moments to just enjoy the duckadoodles.  They are wicked cute!  Our home entertainment center!

Ducks

by Frank W. Harvey

I
From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left!  Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway…
When night is fallen you creep
Upstairs, but drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars.
Moonbeams and shadow bars,
And water-lilies:
Fearful too much to sleep
Since they've no locks
To click against the teeth
Of weasel and fox.
And warm beneath
Are eggs of cloudy green
Whence hungry rats and lean
Would stealthily suck
New life, but for the mien
The hold ferocious mien
Of the mother-duck.

II

Yes, ducks are valiant things
On nests of twigs and straws,
And ducks are soothy things
And lovely on the lake
When that the sunlight draws
Thereon their pictures dim
In colours cool.
And when beneath the pool
They dabble, and when they swim
And make their rippling rings,
0 ducks are beautiful things!
But ducks are comical things:-
As comical as you.
Quack!
They waddle round, they do.
They eat all sorts of things,
And then they quack.
By barn and stable and stack
They wander at their will,
But if you go too near
They look at you through black
Small topaz-tinted eyes
And wish you ill.
Triangular and clear
They leave their curious track
In mud at the water's edge,
And there amid the sedge
And slime they gobble and peer
Saying 'Quack! quack!'

III

When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves - quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good - even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, 1 think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!

Speak softly & wear LOUD socks

It is such a busy time!  I have lots of bloggy thoughts but not enough time to get them written...bare with me, hang in there, a lull will come...have I ever mentioned I love idioms?  Anyways, this was this morning's "catch"!  

One of my mottos is ~~~ "Speak softly and wear LOUD socks" ~~~ I have the sock part down...anyways..

Two Poems for today for your pondering on grey day here in Maine.....

Duck Eggs and Keats Instead of Grace

By Anna Selby

Why can’t it always be like this?

Opening the door of a car
left in sunshine.

Eating olives at night and arguing
about apostrophes.

Leaving in the dark hours
of the morning.

Reciting Keats, instead of grace
over frittata.

Finishing your glass,
and finding it full

and finding it full again,
and finding it full.

Asparagus by Margaret Atwood

This afternoon a man leans over
the hard rolls and the curled
butter, and tells me everything: two
women love him, he loves them, what
should he do?

The sun
sifts down through the imperceptibly
brownish urban air. I'm going to
suffer for this: turn red, get
blisters or else cancer. I eat
asparagus with my fingers, he
plunges into description.
He's at his wit's end, sewed
up in his own frenzy. He has
breadcrumbs in his beard.
I wonder
if I should let my hair go grey
so my advice will be better.
I could wrinkle up my eyelids,
look wise. I could get a pet lizard.
You're not crazy, I tell him.
Others have done this. Me, too.
Messy love is better than none,
I guess. I'm no authority
on sane living.

Which is all true
and no hep at all, because
this form of love is like the pain
of childbirth: so intense
it's hard to remember afterwards,
or what kind of screams and grimaces
it pushed you into.

The shrimp arrive on their skewers,
the courtyard trees unroll
their yellow caterpillars,
pollen powders our shoulders.
He wants them both, he relates
tortures, the coffee
arrives and altogether I am amazed
at his stupidities.

I sit looking at him
with a sort of wonder;
or is it envy?
Listen, I say to him,
you're very lucky.

~~~Gratitude~~~

I am grateful for ducks.  We have the pleasure of caring for 7 Runner Ducks.  They have been under our care for 3 1/2 years now.  We loving call then the "Cluster Ducks" or for you Star Trek Fans..."The Borg".  Ducks are less individual and more community.  They are easy to care for and provide us with wonderful eggs.  They forage like crazy for insects, slugs, and snails. But mostly, I am grateful to have them in my life to just watch.  They are delightful creatures.  They greet me each morning with a wonderful bowing dance as I let them out of their house we call "Duckingham Palace".  And yes, I bow and dance with them...sorry no video?!?!

I will write more about ducks down the road and welcome any questions from would be quack care takers.  I am still new to the blogging rhythm.  I have a lot I want to share.  It IS the busy holiday season. I just want you to know I am still here and expect to be more rhythmic once the next week or so passes.  In the meantime enjoy these few photos of my girls with some duck poetry to go along.

The Duck

Behold the duck. 

It does not cluck. 

A cluck it lacks. 

It quacks. 

It is specially fond

Of a puddle or pond. 

When it dines or sups, 

It bottoms ups. 

Ogden Nash

This poem was one of my son's favorites when he was a little guy.  We used to recite it together nearly every night for several years.  That was many years before having ducks.  Maybe, this poem gave me the ducky desire?

`Ducks' Ditty.'

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!

Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!
WE like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
WE are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!

Kenneth Grahame ~~~ Wind in the Willows