We bought a house with a swimming pool. I don't think I'd do it again, but what's done is done, and the pool has water, and ducks like to swim in water, and every spring before we open the pool ducks come and try to swim in it. This sometimes prompts a most curious scene as Lori or Aaron try to chase them away... though they always come back, at least until the water warms up.
In some years ducks have started nests in spots near the pool. One time was a duck war, all the eggs were smashed, and a male duck with a very broken neck ended up in the pool. Another time, a duck abandoned its last egg. The children tried to hatch it, but nothing ever happened.
June 19: 9 ducklings, unable to make it over a bubble in the cover.
On June 19th, our history changed. Lori suspected we had another duck with a nest, and its nearby male partner, but on this chilly morning we found out. Ducks in the pool! Or, since we had covered the pool the previous night, it was ducks on the pool! Mama ducks like to teach the ducklings to swim right away, and don't seem much bothered by little details like... the water being covered. One mother duck and 9 ducklings stepping across the new pool cover.
Ducks and ducklings in home swimming pools can cause several problems, though. For one thing, they poop a lot, and no one wants duck poop in their pool. For another, ducklings just aren't very strong. The ducklings weren't even strong enough to navigate a small bubble in the pool cover to follow their mother's voice; a few found a gap between the cover and the wall and made a go for it. Four got trapped under the cover; only three made it out alive when I removed the cover. So then we had a mother duck and 8 ducklings in the pool, and one dead duckling.
June 19: Eight surviving ducklings follow mama's voice but are stuck in the pool.
But we had another problem beyond a dead duckling: the other ducklings couldn't get out of the pool. Oh, from time to time one or two made it out by managing to hop on each others' backs, but they couldn't all get out of the pool. In millions of years of evolution, the duck species accounted for lakes and places where the newborns could walk in and out of the water... but they never accounted for a step of even a few inches. Mama duck would hop out and the ducks would follow her quack, but inevitably they remained in the water, forcing mama duck to come back in. They wouldn't hop on a raft or a board to climb out, either.
Finally, Aaron came up with a solution. First, he got mama duck out of the pool. Two ducklings managed to hop out as well, but the other 6 huddled together. Aaron then used a net to scoop the 6 up and deliver them to mama duck, out of the pool. Mama duck and her 8 survivors quickly made off for the other side of the property, where we'd spotted a male duck waiting some time earlier. We haven't seen the ducklings since.
But that evening, Aaron saw a female duck and a male duck hanging out together at the pool... without any ducklings. Could the ducklings have perished that quickly? Or was this another pair?
July 8: Eleven ducklings! Mama duck also appears to have a bit of a wing injury.
This morning, we got our answer: A mama duck with eleven ducklings, in the pool! This crew was quieter than the first one... maybe because they could go straight in the pool without having to deal with a deadly pool cover. Of course, these ducklings had no more hope than the first of getting out of the pool on their own. Mama duck got out, and a couple tried to jump... typically smacking their beaks halfway up the wall from the top of the waterline. So Aaron got out the net. We got the mama duck out of the pool, and the net... held eight ducklings! So now we had eight out, three in, and a very confused and somewhat distressed mama duck. No matter what she did, she'd be abandoning some of her ducklings. Finally, we got her out of the pool and with her eight ducklings, while Elianna rescued the other three one at a time. One duckling tried to flee, and another tried to play dead, but Elianna got them all. Once Aaron released them, they'd follow mama duck's quack to reunite in the bushes. Mama duck then led them away, we don't know where.
July 8: Rescued ducklings, forced to wait for mama.
Where did the two duck families with their 19 surviving ducklings go? Did the ducklings all survive? Did they avoid predators and cars and other deadly hazards? Will we have a dozen ducks trying to nest here next year? We might need more nets.
The most exciting day for any day is the day when the next album leaks. This is a tradition that goes back more than 30 years, and today -- 6 days before the official release of Bruce's "Tracks II" -- is the day. Sure, it's mp3 files this time, and I'll be purchasing the full thing, but these are still the days. In this case, the release is a monster -- seven full albums of material, comprising 83 tracks that were originally recorded between 1983 and 2018. Most of the 83 tracks have never been released before in any form, and only 2 ("County Fair" and "I'll Stand By You Always") have been previously released in the form they appear on here. "Tracks II" is divided in to 7 distinct albums. "LA Garage Sessions '83," "Streets of Philadelphia Sessions," "Faithless," "Somewhere North of Nashville," "Inyo," "Twilight Hours," and "Perfect World." Much of the mater...
Today was "The Main Event" of the Born to Run 50th Anniversary weekend at Monmouth University, and it was the most thrillingly unique day I've ever experienced as a Springsteen fan. Walking in to the Pollak Theater in the morning, I was immediately struck by how happy everyone seemed. Then I noticed how many in the capacity 750-seat room I've known for decades. Today was to document the anniversary, but in a way it was also for us. Consisting mostly as panel discussions and interviews, the day started with a Boom. Boom Carter, that is, the drummer that most Springsteen fans have never seen, who recorded exactly one song as a member of the E Street Band: Born to Run. Boom was joined by Garry Tallent and David Sancious for the first panel of the day, moderated by radio personality Tom Cunningham on the band as it existed from February through August 1974. Sancious was eloquent recalling events from long ago, though he also noted that in 1974 he was busy focusing on the ...
Over the years, an expectation has occasionally been built in the Bruce fan community that a tour finale will be a spectacle. There is certainly precedent for that: In 2000, the Reunion Tour ended with a blowout at Madison Square Garden, including rarities and even a world debut. In 2009, the Working on a Dream tour ended in Buffalo with a once-ever performance of the entire Greetings from Asbury Park album, and also other rarely and never-played songs. So for this final Milano show in the extreme heat, this final rescheduled show from 2024 and the last go-round for this 20-day tour's E Street Band, it could hardly be a surprise that fans arriving at San Siro thought maybe there'd be a bit of that once-in-a-lifetime experience at a building that has produced so many prior memories. This was not that show. If you saw Monday's show, you pretty much saw this one. This isn't a bad thing: Bruce was in great spirits, playing with audience members again and egging on t...
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