A Daffy Update

What's new? Not much. It's Phoenix. It's still hotter than Hades, and the rare clouds just blow on by and leave the rain elsewhere. I ran out the backdoor this morning when I saw a few sprinkles on the pool, but it was gone before I got there.

Craig's still churning out the aloe. When he retires, maybe we should open an aloe farm? Those puppies multiply like rabbits, but really, how many aloe does a person need??? I should count the pots and give you The Pot Update. I bet that'd light up the map on the side of the blog!

The nightly sunsets continue to amaze.

And speaking of multiplying, look what's happened!

Remember, there were two white ducks -- Taffy and Daffy?

Sometime this past spring or early summer (I think it happened when I was out of town in July), four other domestic ducks suddenly appeared. My first thought was -- Taffy and Daffy finally discovered how to hatch eggs? But where'd that half black one come from? Friends just happened to run into the culprits, so they got the scoop.

A local family has decided that it's their mission to fill our neighborhood ponds (they actually call them lakes here, but they're ponds) with ducks. I'm not even sure the family lives in the neighborhood. According to their explanation, it's a tradition to buy the ducklings for their kids at Easter, and then dump them on the community once they get too big for the backyard. (Dump is my word.)

An animal lover in the neighborhood, when it was just Taffy and Daffy, decided that she would go to a local feed store, buy duck food, and supply the poor orphans with a proper daily diet. At the time, it seemed a very thoughtful gesture. She was concerned because Taffy and Daffy were suffering an unhealthy carb overload from the white bread thrown to them by families who live around the lakes.

You've probably figured out that I have liberal leanings, but I'm sad to say this tale has turned into an allegory that Fox News would just love! Ducks on the Dole. Some liberal do-gooder starts giving free handouts and everyone in town shows up. Wild ducks soon migrate to the location and just won't leave. The population swells and the do-gooder has to supply more and more feed. They all like it here so much, what with the free meal every morning and tasty snacks fed to them every night, that they didn't bother to migrate home in the summer.

The photos below don't even do the situation justice. When Saby and I walk by in the mornings, there are easily a hundred ducks, most of them wild ducks, camped out quacking waiting for the morning meal wagon to arrive. They swarm towards us until they figure out we're not packing viddles. It's a soup kitchen. The proverbial bread line.

The photo below was taken after they'd been fed, so most of the ducks had flown the coop back to fresher water on their other chosen ponds around the neighborhood.

I have a feeling that the duck poop will be hitting the fan (the HOA committee) in the near future. I'm all in favor of live and let live, but the ducks are fowling the pond. Not to mention the sidewalks, grass, etc... etc.... It's reminding me of the Canadian geese situation when we lived in Seattle. (That's right, blame it on the Canadians!) The geese overpopulated all the local lake parks and soon cities were hauling out everything in their arsenals to get rid of them. Their poop closed the swimming beaches. Actually, the poop was everywhere! And those Canadian geese were quite testy and know to be downright mean to the locals. Authorities tried annoying them with sound and hired dogs to chase them. But that didn't deter those Canadians! They finally captured them with large nets and removed them to faraway locations (and the geese migrated right back -- duhhhh!).

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we just try to do a good deed for the ducks!