Unlikely Heroes: Ducks

Reader Contribution by Laura Berlage and North Star Homestead Farms

Ducks outside the garden, on slug patrol.  Photo by Megan Barnes 

Ducks.  They’re the comedy team on the farm.  They splash in their kiddie pool, quack, flap, dance around, follow each other, chase bugs, and have the most hilarious antics. 

To ducks, water is endlessly wonderful—the rain, a puddle, a hose.  Doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, it’s simply wonderful…every time.  They’re like the perfect birdy embodiment of the Zen “beginner’s mind.”  Water is new and marvelous, every day!

Ducks are also relatively harmless.  Their feet only have tiny claws and their legs are short and slim, so no tremendous kicking and scratching like turkeys, and their bills are supple and wide, so no hard pecks of hens or ferocious bites of geese.  Their natural tendency is to run away in the face of adversity, even if that adversity is an airplane flying overhead.  “Can I come out now?  Whew…that was scary.”

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