Nesting & Resting Mother — Don’t Be Tossed Away

Mother Mallard, BlackBerry Shots, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Day in and day out
humans race from place to place;
nature sits rain or shine, not tossed away
for that one wild chance — ducklings on Mother’s Day.

NOTE: I’ve been checking on Mother Mallard every day since I first saw her little nest of eggs (see Nesting & Resting) in a high traffic area near an industrial complex. She sits patiently through volatile storms, human insensitivity, rushing wind and rain, days when the Sun warms her nest. She never wavers. I learn from her, as I often learn from Mother Nature — don’t be tossed away.

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, May 7th, 2011, World Labyrinth Day

-related to posts: WRITING TOPIC — LIGHT AS A FEATHER, haiku 4 (one-a-day) Meets renga 52, MN Black Bear Den Cam: Will Lily Have Cubs?

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Nesting & Resting

Duck Eggs, processed version of Nesting – 17/52, Week 17 Jump-Off, BlackBerry 52, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, April 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

A mallard has taken up residence outside the door of a busy commercial building I visit each day. She sits on the eggs at night. By day, the human foot traffic keeps her away. So she covers the nest with down and dried umber leaves. They blend easily with the gravel and cement. Adaptability. The humans who inhabit the building keep watch over her eggs; smokers on break are eager to depart the latest news. I watch and wait in silence, hoping for a hatching of ducklings in the middle of a wintry Spring.

The original photograph was posted as the Week 17 Jump-Off for BlackBerry 52. Lotus and I will respond to each other’s BlackBerry photos with text, photography, poetry (however we are inspired) for the 52 weeks of 2011. You can read more at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration. If you are inspired to join us, send us a link to your images, poetry, or prose and we’ll add them to our posts.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, April 29th, 2011

-related to post: Of Thirsty Snakes And Ducks With Dry Bills

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Of Thirsty Snakes And Ducks With Dry Bills

Baby quenches her thirst (one), Baby the Bullsnake drinks her fill of water on a warm spring morning, April 2009, photo © 2009 by Jim. All rights reserved.

The other morning Baby the Bullsnake was lying in her empty water dish, breathing hard as if she were panting. (Do snakes pant?) I’d gone into the potting shed to water the geraniums, and as much as I wanted to open her cage and relieve her thirst, I was afraid she’d moved suddenly and send me fleeing from the shed, screaming. So I did what any sane person would do; I called Jim.

Psst…have you ever seen a snake drink?

A snake walks into into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender tells the snake he can’t serve it. “Why not?” asks the snake. “Because you can’t hold your liquor.”

Jim poured the water into her dish while Baby was in it. I expected her to jerk forward and come slithering out. But she lay there, letting the water swirl all around. She got to the task of drinking right away, floating in the water like an alligator, eyes and nostrils above the surface, mouth below. Then she appeared to inhale deeply, breathing the water in as if parched.

  

Speaking of water, Jim irrigated earlier in the week and ever since a hundred or so Mallard ducks have been frollicking in the field. They really do look like those shooting range carnival games where the little duck swims back and forth, back and forth. These Mallards swim along the channeled grooves dug into the field for the purpose of irrigation.

They’re fun to watch. They dip their heads underwater and shake vigorously. Jim says they’re pulling up the grass to eat. That’s why property owners chase them away, he tells me. I ask him why he doesn’t mind having them. Because they’re part of nature, he says.

A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks for Chapstick. The cashier says, “Cash or credit card.” “Just put it on my bill,” the duck replies.

Ducks in the field (one), pairs of Mallard ducks frollicking in the field after irrigation day, April 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

Ducks in the field (two), you can just make out Mike and Mallary Malloy to the left of the Ortegas, April 2009, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

-related to posts Baby Wakes From Her Nap, Who Said Snakes Aren’t Cute?, snake awake haiku, and sticks for legs and arms.

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