Grumpy Duck

I haven’t written about Luna or anything in a few days because I have been very busy with my new part-time job. My new job is being a duck servant to Luna all day every day.

Luna has not taken well to her life in the house, especially since she had to come back inside due to her bill injury after mostly healing from her leg injury. I think she thought she was home free, so coming back inside full time seemed to take a toll on her. I think she made sure it took a toll on me too. If you have never heard a female duck quack with all of her might, I assure you it’s quite loud. It hurts. And in our old house with wood floors, the quack echoes loudly. My son is very sensitive to sounds, and I am a bit as well, so I try to do what I can to avoid this loud quacking. I have been running and jumping and tending to a grumpy duck for several days now, and I am pretty worn.

My mornings start with having to carry buckets of her tub water out of house because Ron worries about putting a giant duck bath, which is a lot of water, into our septic system. So, every morning, one of us has to carry the water out of the house. It’s usually me because Ron is busy building a fire in the wood stove and when I am done with carrying water from Luna’s bath, Ron has to carry buckets of water out to the outside ducks for their daily water. They use about 40 gallons or so a day, more when the water freezes and we have to carry out more in the middle of the day. Have I mentioned that I will never have ducks again?

After I empty the tub, I put Luna and her nest into my son’s music room and shut the door to keep her safe from our two curious kitties, and then I head out to do the chicken chores. Thankfully, the chickens only require 5 gallons of water each morning, so I carry out 1 bucket to Ron’s 8.

After the chickens are all set, and that takes a good bit, I am back in the house on Luna duty. I scrub the tub and then start the water. I make tea and coffee while that water is running. Oh, and I feed the kitties. Then, I can go get Luna, who is usually quacking quite loudly to let me know she is dissatisfied and needs her morning time in the tub. I have to hold her like she’s flying because she feels better when she “flies” through the house (runner ducks cannot really fly but can certainly flap those wings), and then I bring her in for a soft landing in her tub. She loves the warm water and splashes around so much. That’s pretty much the only time of the day she’s happy.

While she’s doing that, I have to clean all of her dishes and her nest box. I take her old straw out to the duck area, so the outside ducks can use it to keep their feet warm. I get new straw and food and fresh water, and her little nest box is all ready to go for when she finishes tub time.

And that’s just the morning. While I am busy all day trying to work, grade papers, homeschool, cook, and whatever else it is that I do, I am up about every half hour meeting some demand from Luna. The cats are too close. The dogs are too close. She needs to poop (she is amazing and won’t poop in her nest box or on the floor unless she just has no choice). She wants to be with her people. She wants to walk around. She doesn’t like the curtains. The curtains moved. The broom is scary. The wrap for her foot looks like a snake. Snakes are super scary to ducks, I guess. She wants peas. She doesn’t like the red shirt I am wearing. I have to change shirts. She needs fresh water. She needs more tub time. And I don’t even know what else.

On top of this, Ron hurt his back terribly Monday night trying to chop up a downed tree near the chicken yard from the bad storm about a month ago, so in addition to waiting on a grumpy duck, I had to do farm chores by myself all day on Tuesday. I did all of the buckets of water going in and out by myself, and it was so, so hard–and then I got a flu shot–and then I went down, like down, down.

Thankfully, Ron’s back is better because I put my homemade CBD cream on it, and it fixed it! I was so grateful he was better and so grateful I didn’t have to do chores by myself today, especially since it snowed quite a bit. I was so worn this morning, I couldn’t even finish my part of the snow shoveling. Normally, Ron does our driveway because it is long and epic, our son does the back side of the house, and I do the chicken and duck areas. I just barely finished the chicken area this morning when Ron saw me and was like, “You have to go inside.” I would normally argue but not today. I just went inside. The warm fire in the wood stove Ron built was heaven. For a few minutes, I just sat there in front of the fire while Luna was in her tub.

And, in another “thankfully” today, things took a better turn with Luna. She wasn’t nearly so grumpy. The cats can get a little closer without causing alarms, and she is starting to like me now, like quite a bit. She lets me pet her. I tried to sit with her on the couch the other day, and she wouldn’t let me, but I might try it again. I think I’ve won her over.

She barely complained today and seems to like it that we got a new, bigger nest box for her. She seems to understand that I am trying so, so hard. Oh, and she started laying eggs from being in the light so much. It’s great for us but not good for her to be laying in January, so I am trying to make sure she spends more time in the dark. She laid her first egg on Monday, and I was so excited. Then, I realized I was a stupid human who had forgotten that she didn’t need so much light. So I am addressing that, but, truly, the eggs are lovely.

When the snow melts in the spring, we are going to try to slowly integrate her back into the flock using the tried and true method for reintegration where you keep them together for a while but separated by a fence, so no one can get hurt. If that doesn’t work, Luna will have to live in the house for the rest of her life, I suppose. Hopefully, it will get easier. It’s been a tough month or so with this duck. I think we are finally starting to become friends though–or else she just has Stockholm syndrome.