My garden is where I get my best praying done. There in the relative quiet between the push and the spade, God gets my attention. Last week he sent a couple of ducks to talk to me.
Enter Maude and Claude, a cute little mallard couple that waddled across our driveway, like they do every year, and invited themselves to be our pond guests. We aren’t good with uninvited guests, but we love to see this couple flap in and make their uncoordinated landing near our back porch. I would say they do this unceremoniously, but flap and uncoordinated already blew that cover. They always look bewildered when plop down, as if their GPS gave them the wrong direction on the skyway highway, and they ended up at Cracker Barrel where they ate too many carbs.
That’s ok. My wife and I still welcome them in because that’s what feathered friends do when they haven’t seen each other for a while and it doesn’t take long before we’ve all picked up right where we left off. One of the things we like so much about Maude and Claude is that they are so up front with their shortcomings, and as it turns out, ducks have a lot of them. Maude is having some carpel tunnel surgery on her flippers this year, and Claude is having laser surgery on his bill, which he admits looks like a spaghetti spatula. We just laugh, and tell them they look great, and that they’ll probably live to a hundred.
“We are like a wannabe circus act,” laughs Claude, ruffling a few tail feathers. “Maude says my body looks like a missing wedge from Mr. Potato Head.”
My wife and I politely laugh also, and just to make Claude feel comfortable, I show Claude my hammer toe, which he looks at sideways.
“Whhoooaa!” he teases, “I’m glad that thing is on you! I wouldn’t make it ten feet in your pond with a foot like that!”
“That’s good,” I laugh, “Because that is about all the room you’ll have in our pond!” Whereupon Maude and Claude rear back and cackle and then ask for another cracker.
“How’s the yoga classes going?” we ask Maude and Claude that night at Duck Happy Hour.
For those of you who don’t know, ducks love yoga. If you are watching a gaggle of them, they line up in a V pattern out in a field and do a lot of odd poses. When the lead duck at the top of the V gets a bit tired or must hold a duck yoga position for too long, that duck falls to the back of the pack and another yoga duck waddles forward to take its place. This is an amazing adaptation God built into these birds that enables them to practice yoga for hours on end without eating or sleeping, as the ducks in the lead take the eddy drag for the others.
“Great!” piped in Maude, the louder of the two. “I love our instructor. He’s very good, very professional. He can hold the V like nobody’s business!"
Claude went up on one foot and disagreed. “Well, I’m not a fan. He keeps trying to teach us the Cat Pose! Hey, c’mon, really? Cats? I find that personally offensive myself, but he’s young. A couple of us drakes met at DuckBucks the other day and talked about it. Darned if that Quack didn’t come right back the next day in class and teach us Downward Facing Dog! HONESTLY! The nerve!”
“I think he’s kind of cute,” said Maude, “and can he ever crane that neck! Amazing! I learn something every time I take his class!”
“Oh really, dear, c’mon!” piped in Claude again, “There’re so many good poses…Pigeon, Peacock, Bald Eagle, any of those I’m good with! But, P-LEASE, no dogs and cats! I figure he’s a right winger smart duck trying to make a point.”
There was an awkward silence in the air. I looked at my wife, and she looked at me. We looked back at our guests. I thought to myself, I’m not touching this one… I’m not going to judge… just listen… be supportive. Never get in between two ducks in a row.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to. Maude and Claude had already waddled off to our pond for Aqua Aerobics. It was spring.