DUCKS!

Yes, Ducks!  This morning on my way to my office from the Rosslyn Metro (subway stop) as I was crossing Lynn Street, a pickup truck passed with a Ducks Ulimited license plate from Virginia.  His plate read "QUAAK"!  That got me to thinking about ducks.  Yes, ducks!  Had he been an insurance professional, then his perfect plate would have been AFLAC, provided he was an AFLAC employee.

Some of the thoughts that come to my mind when I ponder ducks are the following:

1.  They're very cute.  They waddle around quacking with what would amount to snowshoes or diving fins for a human.  Maybe that quack is cursing the duck creator!,

2.  They are beautiful and graceful swimming along in a pond or stream.  Appearing to be completely unsuspecting of a hungry turtle below the surface salivating for "Duck a la Pond"!,

3.  Ducks to me acutally symbolize an inpenetratable resilience.  After all, us humans have the saying "like water off a duck's back". 

4.  They come all sorts of beautiful colors.  Especialy the male Mallards.

5.  A short while back I had the conversation with someone of other than coloration, how can you tell the difference between the Drake (male) and the Duck (female).  He didn't know that it was my the curl on the tail of the drake.  He also didn't know the term for the male was "drake".

6.  When I was growing up as a kid living on the farm, I had ducks.  I had white ones, black ones, brown ones, and colorful ones.  I was always sad when the foxes would kill them.  I'd go out early in the morning to feed the animals and there'd be duck feathers everywhere.  Somehow the chickens rarely fell prey to the foxes.  Vixen is the term for a female fox.  I suppose it was because they could at least fly up into the trees to roost at night whereas the ducks could fly, but their webbed feet wouldn't help them hold on to the branch.  Therefore they had to squat on the ground or some low lying area where Mr. Fox would go up and grab him his next meal.  It sometimes made me cry.