352 TWO DUCKS AND THREE DUCKS

I got home from Florida a week ago. It is good to be "back home again in Indiana".   It always is and one of the many many things that I love and would miss about Indiana is my little pond I built from scratch in 1995.  And I was happy to see that the little ducks that my granddaughter Haylee gave me, and are now nice big Mallard Ducks and not only survived the winter here but are doing quite well.
Calling this story 2 ducks and 3 ducks for a good reason.  Off to the right here is the 3 ducks, I call Huey, Dewey and Martha.  They are three of the original four ducks she gave me.  The forth duck Louie is seen here off to the left of this picture with his new bride Mildred...where Mildred came from we don't know but she came last fall and took Louie away for quite a spell...we think maybe to the wildcat creek not sure but just before I left for Florida Louie came back with Mildred and now we have Five ducks...But there is some difficulty it seems between the two females..Martha stays with her brothers probably soon to be her husband when she chooses maybe.  But Mildred and Louie do not mix with the other three.  They choose to stay at the opposite end of the pond from the others.  But occasionally Mildred will leave for a day or so to maybe visit her kin down at the Wildcat.  When they happens sometimes Louie goes with her and sometimes he does not..  If he stays here he then folds in with his little original family while she is gone.  Thus I come up with the idea that Mildred and Martha just don't cotton to each others company too much. When the pond would freeze over all the ducks would leave and we think they may have gone no farther than the little 3 foot wide stream a quarter mile away that is spring fed and does not freeze. Mr. Zimmerman tells me they have to have open water and I think that little stream did the trick for them.  The first day I was home I had 10 ducks on the pond. Four Mallards the original family with out Mildred and six beautiful solid white body ducks with black wings and black heads...they come each spring stopping in for a day or two on their migration to Canada from the south, kind of like me except I stay here all summer they move on.

But now they are gone and I have currently my TWO DUCKS AND THREE DUCKS, and the title of my story today.  But I have faith in nature that before too long I may and hope to be doing a story about "baby ducks", right here...It will be in interesting story of success if it happens, how ducks raised in captivity turned into the wild sucessfully returned to the wild and continue the wild succession that I will report....Maybe I hope, till then............................