Still having a really hard time getting through each duck free day.
I keep thinking of those poor guys just living their lives in the place that had been their home where they had spent all of their days. Then some huge creature they have never seen before comes in and kills them. They have to watch helplessly as it kills each of their buddies, and there was nothing they could do to save themselves. How terrifying that must have been.
Also the fact that most of them were near the pen is bothersome. Did they just happen to be laying near it at the time, or were there trying to get in cause they thought they would have been safe there (and would they have been)?? That's hard. After so many years of not having any pen, then trying to convince them to go in it at night. Did they finally grasp that they were safer in it, and try in vain to go to that safe place? Would they have rather had another 2,3,8 years locked up in it all the time, or not?
If I ever get another duck, right now I am thinking it would have to be one already used to being penned up, so it would not be any less happy here. But that would take so much of the fun out of having them. I loved to watch them swim in their pool, and investigate the yard. Plus they are a lot more work in a pen. I would have done it, it I had known I needed to for them to be safe for now. But for always....after having known freedom is another thing.
Its still so empty. I would be quiet when I got up early, so they would not hear me and make so much noise the neighbors might be bothered. Then after breakfast I would open the curtains, and they would start talking to me. I would count them, then feed them, (and the squirrels and doves).
Giving them water or changing their wading pools was just part of my life. Even looking at plants is no fun now. Yeah, I could plant that. I would not even have to fence it off so the ducks don't eat it or trample it. But whats the point? I don't have the interest.
I did laugh a few times the past 1/2 week. Thought I had forgotten how. Then its almost like, I would feel guilty for it. Must be how the parents of dead children feel. Like having any joy again, would be like not loving or caring enough for the dead child. I know its silly. Me having no joy does not help anything. But its gone for the time being.
Oddly when I went to visit my friend Mark in the nursing home, he took it in a way I totally did not expect. He did say he was sad, and sorry, which was appropriate. Then he focused on me being dog police. Other people have said that too. It really annoys me. I can barely get out of bed and get through the day and they want me to add another thing I don't want to do to my list of stuff to do? It won't help my ducks, it won't make me feel better. I might have to force myself to do some of it if I still had some ducks to try and protect, but I don't. Any way that was annoying, but not the thing that surprised me so much. He said it reminded him of just how help less he is. His disease (ALS) has made him totally helpless. But it did not dawn on me, this would bring that up for him.
Work was not taking my mind off stuff so much today.
I had a dream the other night, I went out and found some (but not all) ducks dead, and holes in the fence. I looked over and there was a different family living there, and they had build pens for the dogs, and were getting ready to tear down the fence and put up a new one. Two weeks ago that would have been a nightmare. This time it was a positive dream. I woke up thinking "they are not all dead, I can still save some, and we are getting a better fence". Sadly it was only a dream.
