A Girl and her Duck

Sophie was mesmerized by the babies when she first saw them.....

Ducks in Joyland

The ducks went outside for the first time this week - and now that's the only place they want to be. They woke me up at 5:30 AM with their insistent cheeping, sure that it was time to get out there and stretch their little duck legs. I assured them they were mistaken. They respectfully disagreed, and upped the volume of their complaints considerably.

I get it. I feel pretty bad about them being cooped up in a big Rubbermaid container after seeing them romp around so joyfully outside. And the weather here in Albuquerque is gorgeous right now. I've spent the last few days on duck duty, getting all my garden seeds started out on the front porch, and then working on a duck fence, so they can be outside without such constant supervision. Patience, patience, little ducks!

I've also introduced them to water by commandeering the birdbath and turning it into a duck water park. All the duck books say they should not be in water until they are fully feathered (another few weeks) but they are doing just fine. They especially like to eat chopped up greens from the water. Fortunately, I have some arugula, cress, kale and turnips that have overwintered and are now going to seed. They can chomp on all that while we wait for the new greens to grow.

Naming them has proved a challenge - the names have changed several times in the last two weeks, but I feel like we've finally arrived (much sooner than the 4 months it took Murphy Brown to name her kid...). My daughter Sophie was inspired by her favorite book characters: Maisy, Panda and Tallulah. And I picked Annabelle for the last and littlest duck.

The ducks are Indian Runners, which is a small breed of duck known best for its upright walking habit - they look more like penguins than ducks. And they are FAST. They will all be outside, relaxed and snagging greens from the water, when one of them will sound some sort of alarm. They all jump up, fully upright, and buzz around in circles for a minute, then go right back to lazing around by the pool. Hilarious.

Little Ducks with Feet

So, I called this blog Little Duck Feet because 1) I have known for awhile that I want a few ducks and 2) I have short, wide feet, which I've always referred to as little duck feet. I'm learning to stand on them, so it seemed a good idea to honor them in some way.

I've raised chickens before - lots of them - but never ducks. I live in Albuquerque now, a city which holds on to its agricultural roots. There is no prohibition against having a few ducks anywhere in the city, and my landlords don't mind either. The ducks will be a lovely component of my mini-farm-in-the-city - deliverers of fresh eggs, eaters of scraps, and garden pals who feast on the snails that cover every damn green thing growing here after a rain. And all that duck poop can go right on the compost pile. Plus, they are cute. Damn cute. I chose Indian Runner ducks (which my daughter Sophie calls "running ducks") because they are hands down the entertainers of the duck world. They walk almost upright, and can run like hell when they want to.

So, I've been waiting for spring, so I could order my ducks. I've always ordered straight from the hatchery, because I always ordered a lot of chicks. But I don't have two acres of land anymore, I have a rather smallish city lot. I want to be able to provide the bulk of their food year-round, because the ducks are so much healthier, and the eggs are so much yummier, but it's not like I have a pasture in my high desert back yard. So, I decided four ducks would be good. Four is far less than what a hatchery will send - they need a group of 10-15 so they can huddle together in their little overnight box and keep warm. I called up Farmer's Feed Store, up on Fourth Street, and asked if I could get 4 Indian runner females. Kenny at the feed store hemmed and hawed a bit, then called up his supplier, and lo and behold! they were just putting together Kenny's shipment. They threw 4 female runner ducks in with the 100 or so chicks that were already on their way to Kenny's. That meant they would be arriving......today.

I was not quite prepared for that level of efficiency. Anyone who's lived in New Mexico for any length of time knows exactly what I'm talking about. Nothing here happens on time. The locals call it the "Land of Manana", or the land of tomorrow, because everything can really wait just one more day. If you are the one with your pipes bursting (and I have been), you might not share that opinion. But you can be sure that whatever plumber you call will pleasantly tell you they will be right over. And they won't show up for two weeks. And they will not understand why you are upset about that. Seriously, when people at parties refer their plumber or contractor or landscaper or whatever, one of the highest recommendations is "S/He showed up on time." That statement has been known to cast a hush on a crowd.

But clearly Kenny at Farmer's Feed is a man who understands the power of now. Which means that even though I am sicker than I have been in a very long time, I had to get my butt in gear and get the baby duck facilities all set up. Which I did.

Sophie and I went up this morning to get our new duck friends. They are so cute, but they do have big hot pink splotches of color on their heads. Kenny explained that the four with the paint splotches were mine. OK, I can see the point of this, if I were trying to pick out my 4 female runner ducks from a sea of otherwise identical baby ducks (they do all look the same when they are little). But in the sea of yellow fluffy, mine were the only ones that were, in fact, ducks. The rest were chickens. Despite the similar cute, yellow fluffiness, all the chicks had beaks. And all the ducks had bills. And large pink splotches of paint. So anyway, that's why the ducks have pink heads. Kenny says it will wear off in a few days.

How did a nice girl like me.....

End up in a place like this. Not that Albuquerque isn't a mecca for folks with Seasonal Affective Disorder. The sunshine is great. But it's the damn desert, and I am a capital G Gardener. As in, I want lush. I want green. I want to grow my own food in the most comprehensive sense. Yes, the growing season is long, and it is true that my spinach survived all winter in my unprotected garden, but there is a downside. The fact is that drought is the law of the land here. Its the price we pay for all this sunshine.

I feel guilty using so much water for my gardens. It feels very irresponsible to try and grow all of my food in the desert. See, I'm from Pennsylvania, where "drought" means it didn't rain that week. You can walk out in the yard, accidentally spill some seeds, and voila! A garden. Not so in the Land of Enchantment. Sometimes I have to water twice a day to keep the green stuff going.

And yet, it is true that, for me, gardening is a hunger for more than food, more than pretty flowers. Playing in the dirt, making beautiful spaces, that's what I do to feed my body and my psyche. I've developed a serious grudge against store-bought vegetables. Yes, even the organic ones from the food co-op, even the ones from the farmer's market. I mean, they'll *do*, but they don't really do it for me. I'm like that old Jewish woman who took a fish from a fisherman's boat, inspected it, and tossed it back into the sea, saying "To me, it wasn't fresh." I want to walk out to my heavily mulched garden, and choose from the freshest of the fresh. And know for certain that it was grown with care, organically and as respectfully as possible.

The other really good side is that my two-and-a-half year-old daughter already loves zucchini, in large part because we go outside and treasure hunt in the zucchini plants. She eats it because it's got a story she understands. And also, I swear to God it tastes better than anything you can buy at a store.

So, I will be gardening in the God-forsaken desert this year. Turning my patch of Bermuda grass and prickly weeds into a real live garden of eatin'.