Maybe next year we'll have a parade.
[I don't know how to post this without it sounding self-congratulatory, which, ick, but it seems like most people could do with a fuzzyyaye story today so, here goes.]
I got home half an hour late today. On account of ducks.
R. and I were out in the workshop this afternoon, and I happened to look outside. To see a wee gaggle of ducklings. Swimming in a puddle by the access road. Right behind a loader. In what is normally a heavily trafficked section of the site. So we freaked out a little bit, went out to investigate, absolutely no sign (sight or sound) of mamma duck. And since a) they don't make duckling-sized reflective gear and b) even if they did there's no way the drivers in the heavy machinery would see them anyway, obviously we had to figure out something. So we herded them up a pile of rock, grabbed them (tiny tiny frantic and webbed feet bigger than their fuzzy yellow heads), put them in a box with a tray filled with water and called the SPCA for advice. So then I drove them fluttering and cheeping and splashing (car seat: still wet. totally worth it.) down to the next town where the closest bird rescue was (which is also really nice to know for future just-in-cases - she's only about seven klicks away) and handed them over to her - she was very very positive about how they'd do. They were black-fuzzy all over except for their faces and looked a little straggley which from reading and vague memory I'm pretty sure is the "nearly moulting into waterproof feathers" stage, so I think that's pretty good.
Operation Yasmine: success!
Something that struck me an hour after I got back, and was actually funny by that point: I totally took the ducklings (after certain persons (not R or myself) had joked about keeping them to roast) to the bird lady? In an OVEN TRAY. *wins*
(In unrelated news, despite going to bed at only half midnight (no, really, that's GOOD for me) last night I really can't focus so, um. Yeah. *waves and toddles off leaving much undone*)
ETA: Also? Funny in light of my "meteorite hitting the Riv" comment yesterday - meteorite hit somewhere in the South Island this afternoon. Given that no one was hurt the sum and total of my reaction at this point is "COOL!" and "wish I could've seen it!"
I got home half an hour late today. On account of ducks.
R. and I were out in the workshop this afternoon, and I happened to look outside. To see a wee gaggle of ducklings. Swimming in a puddle by the access road. Right behind a loader. In what is normally a heavily trafficked section of the site. So we freaked out a little bit, went out to investigate, absolutely no sign (sight or sound) of mamma duck. And since a) they don't make duckling-sized reflective gear and b) even if they did there's no way the drivers in the heavy machinery would see them anyway, obviously we had to figure out something. So we herded them up a pile of rock, grabbed them (tiny tiny frantic and webbed feet bigger than their fuzzy yellow heads), put them in a box with a tray filled with water and called the SPCA for advice. So then I drove them fluttering and cheeping and splashing (car seat: still wet. totally worth it.) down to the next town where the closest bird rescue was (which is also really nice to know for future just-in-cases - she's only about seven klicks away) and handed them over to her - she was very very positive about how they'd do. They were black-fuzzy all over except for their faces and looked a little straggley which from reading and vague memory I'm pretty sure is the "nearly moulting into waterproof feathers" stage, so I think that's pretty good.
Operation Yasmine: success!
Something that struck me an hour after I got back, and was actually funny by that point: I totally took the ducklings (after certain persons (not R or myself) had joked about keeping them to roast) to the bird lady? In an OVEN TRAY. *wins*
(In unrelated news, despite going to bed at only half midnight (no, really, that's GOOD for me) last night I really can't focus so, um. Yeah. *waves and toddles off leaving much undone*)
ETA: Also? Funny in light of my "meteorite hitting the Riv" comment yesterday - meteorite hit somewhere in the South Island this afternoon. Given that no one was hurt the sum and total of my reaction at this point is "COOL!" and "wish I could've seen it!"