Two mallard ducks, appropriately named Jenny and Alfred, visit us for dinner every night. We eat strawbery rhubarb pie Alfred made and homemade goat cheese ravioli or a beet and potato salad and pour a cup full of chicken feed onto the end of the dock for them. They eat slowly and occasionally sip water from the lake.
The first morning of our residence at the house boat, three older, male bachelor ducks visited us hungry for food. We were happy to feed them, as an offering between new neighbors. Later in the day we would bake a cake to leave on Billie and Nancy and Ron's doorstep. One of the ducks, his green head ruffled from the night's escapades, was all too excited. Perhaps he needed some food to quell a nasty hangover. Or maybe he's just a gluttonous pig of a duck who would be happiest in a hot car on the shoulder of some highway eating McDonalds. Anyway, He lay down on his belly in the feed and with spread wings greedily ushered grain into his mouth. It was a delightful and hilarious, if not embarassing, for the duck, feeding frenzy to watch.
And then there was a muskrat. A nice little muskrat who was pushing a lily pad with his nose through the water, presumably, to the house he is building himself. The lily pad was large and covered the muskrat's small face, but he was earnest and pushed and swam and pushed and swam so determinedly that he ran smack right into the foundation of our neighbor's house boat, and kept going.
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