Ducks and Dying

Remember these cute little furry friends?  Another memory...

We can't seem to keep anything alive out here in the woods!  We recently lost our last two ducks. We started with four (the cute ducklings in this picture) but two were killed one night that we left them out of the pen (a clear sign that they were not yet ready to be on their own) and the other two have disappeared.  

We were letting them out everyday to play in the lake and putting them up at night, hoping to train them to come in for food and protection.  These particular ducks were not too trainable and put up quite the fight every time it was time to go back in the pen... 

I'm literally laughing out loud writing this, thinking of all the times I watched my husband chase them down, cutting them off to the left, no- to the right, DIVE! Oh my heavens, I can't stop laughing.  Good times. The ducks were fun pets and the idea was good- a family affair, taking care of the critters together, laughing (still), and sharing the hope and dream that we would have our own little flock of lake ducks in our backyard.  

Grace Louise wasn't too sad about the missing ducks.  The morning I went out and saw the pen door open (and ducks gone... and a few scattered feathers), I told her, "Well, babe, our ducks are gone.  They were either eaten by a raccoon or went to live somewhere else." I try to be a straight-shooter.

"We have to go look for them, mom!"  

We didn't go look for them and she seemed to forget about it in a matter of minutes.  

...Until a whole week later.  We were rocking/nursing at night before bed and she said so optimistically, "We're gonna take care of our ducks tomorrow, right?!"

"No, baby, our ducks are gone."

"But I don't want them to be dead."

"Well, honey, they might not be dead, they might have just found another home on the lake somewhere." (which just might be true).

At this point she's actually crying, bless her heart, and said, "But I want them to stay at our home!"

"Well, we can pray and ask God to bring our ducks back.  He might bring them back or if he doesn't, He has a better plan in mind, either for us to have different pets or for the ducks to have a better home."

"But I want God to bring them back to our home."

There were genuine tears of sadness... quite the moment for a two year old.  And a little heartbreaking for me too.  (and Jimmy... the ducks were his idea, after all).  

No more crying, but she's confident that her daddy will buy her ducks again one day, or some other pet... maybe a guinea pig?