Encounters --- by
Ray Hart
Isn't That Just Ducky?
A lot of my encounters have been
with animals. I usually refer to them lovingly as "critters" for some
strange reason. Critters seems to have a special sound
to it and imply a caring concern from my perspective. And after Iniki, the hurricane that hit
A mother cat, with several
babies came into our yard and up to our front screen door (we didn't have a
real door!) and hung out until I gave her and the babies
food and water. Finished, she collected the kitties and went across the street
to disappear the way she came, under a house. I tried to get her attention
because she was leaving a yowling orange colored kitty on the front steps. She
totally ignored my shouts and motionings, as well as
the serious yowling of the baby. Oh well, I thought, she'll come back for it
sooner or later. The kitty quieted down after what seemed like a long time of
crying and laid on a pair of John's shoes which sat a
little to one side of the steps. Being the concerned mother that I can be when
it comes to critters, I checked on the baby frequently long after the sunset
flashed green into the ocean. I noticed that she (I had determined that it was
a female) snuggled into one of the shoes and fell asleep. For the next couple
of days I made sure that she had food and water, and each night she snuggled up
in one of John's shoes. Her mother never came back.
When it was obvious that she had
been abandoned I guessed that we had another mouth to feed. Ginger became one
of the family, of course, and a couple of days later a constant cry was coming
from the rock wall in front of our yard about twenty-five yards away. Well, it
looked like the mother had abandoned another child of hers. Stuck in a crevice
of the lava rock we found a beautiful all black baby
which I determined was Ginger's brother. Well, Lava joined our family too, and
became an in-house critter like his sister.
Within a few weeks after Iniki we had a few more kitties suddenly appearing at our
back door, all of which were waifs from Iniki's fury.
We ended up with a couple of dozen cats to feed eventually, all of which we had
to get fixed so as not to add to the overpopulated
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention
that a day after Iniki we were visited by three other
critters that waddled up our drive and into our yard. Three
ducks. They waddled down the street after I fed them, and the next day
they came back. Then they found a nook and cranny in our huge yard and planted
their fanny - to stay! Oh well, I thought...
I dug out a pond for them in the
yard eventually and that was it for sure. They made their nests in our yard. We
had two females and one male, all white, with a black spot on the male's head.
Shortly thereafter one of them went to the pond with twenty-five bright yellow
babies following her. Oh well, I thought.. The Vet said
that it was unusual for a duck to have so many chirping yellow balls of joy,
but nevertheless there they were. The cats learned fast. A firm "No!"
occasionally and they never bothered the babies. One of the little duckies had a bad leg and would tip over on its back,
chirping loudly for help. I stood opened mouth the first time I saw several
others run back to help get him upright. Oh, yeah, his name became Stumpy, of
course.
We had so many ducks in our yard
that people would bring their kids to look at them, feed them, and get all
excited with the little yellow critters. We eventually scattered the
When we left the island to move
to
--- © by Ray Hart
http://www.sfpnn.com/ray_hart.htm