On Ducks
I read a interesting Washington Post article on the domestication of cats last week
Why Do Cats Hang Around Us? (Hint: They Can't Open Cans) - washingtonpost.com. Curiously it fit with a conversation I had with Tran a few days before. This initially centered on her disaffection for cats, which I can understand. She was loooking at a picture in a magazine which showed an unhappy wet and soapy cat in a sink. Cats don't like baths much, I remarked. Cats don't like anything much, she returned. I get along with that type of bunny people call cats, but not everyone does. Even dogs supposedly man's best friend did little for her. I couldn't believe that none of the beasties we share this world with left her untouched. So I tried to draw her out with stories and inquiries into the animal kingdom. The story the Washington Post related of the self domestication of cats matched her perception of them as creatures of shared convenience. They fed themselves where she grew up, and formed no bond of close attachement with people in a countyside devoid of kibbles n' bits. But they were only one among many creatures on the stage.
"Cats and Dogs are fine I suppose", she said "but they do not make you laugh, they do not amuse you. It is hard to tell if they like you."
What animal does do that? "Ducks. Oh they are such troublemakers. They follow you around and try to get into the house. They are so mischievous." The tone of her voice and look in her eyes as she focused on an image from long ago from a lost carefree memory of her youth surprised me. Now these were not your wild green headed malards or your basic little black duck. She took a moment to make that clear. These ducks were big ducks. Ducks the size of geese. The sort of ducks you have in Asian countries. I went to Wikipedia to check up on Ducks
Domesticated duck - Wikipedia. I figured she was talking about what I would call a farm duck. A Long Island Duck as I find they are called here. The Long Island Duck is a breed which however came from China in the 1880's and are also known as Pekin Ducks. Looking over this picture which I have cribbed off of Wikipedia I find it easy to see this as one of ducks Tran described. I lived next door to a dairy farm when I was young, Prentiss farm, in Plymouth MA. I don't recall specifically if they had ducks but they had critters of various sizes and shapes all over that place. Swans nested in the marshes by the Eel river. I learned early you do not pester swans. One curious thing that came back to me as I write this is the field trip my second grade class took to the county farm. I have still one distinct memory of that, a man feeding some enourmous pigs. We kept well back not only for the fact that the pigs seemed inclined to munch on anything in front of them as much as for the fact that at that time the Plymouth county farm was also the Plymouth county jail.
This post is for Tran a girl who loved and misses her troublesome Ducks.
11:49:26 PM  ;;
|
