Actually three sitting ducks.
One beside the front steps, 
One in the woodpile, 
And one in the barn ( in the dark ). I saw her, she hissed at me from the gloom – but it was too dark for a picture. I bet there are more sitting hidden in the trees but we must not raise our hopes – they may be infertile like last years duck egg hatching attempt. They still feel like promises though.
Incredible how they sit for weeks like that without moving. They all have water and food nearby but I don’t see evidence of eating. Or drinking for that matter – it is the way of birds I guess. 
I miss home a lot lately. 
I find myself stranded behind my mask at a loss as to what to say. Ordinary things seem so trite now. I have been told more than once that I don’t understand – I never grew up here – and that is true – so I do stuff more than say stuff now.
Getting back to the farm in daylight is a blessing – every evening Sheila is sitting at her gate waiting for me. Literally sitting at her gate. John says he does not see her all day. I think she just waits until she hears my car then comes out into her field for her vegetables and a drink and a scratch and then while Poppy is vacuuming up the left-overs Sheila and I walk slowly back to the barn and I help her make her bed. She is an old pig now. Tall and long with less teeth. But still my lovely girl.
Tima waits at her gate too. John is forbidden from feeding her – she got so fat she was having trouble breathing and I could hear her snoring from my bedroom. So she is in the diet field and I feed her at night. No grains at all ever for that pig.
I hope you are well and hanging in there.
Love love
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
39 responses to “SITTING DUCK”
So glad to hear from you, Celi ! Your ‘problem’ is not that you do not understand . . . but that you understand too well. This truly will be over one day . . . meanwhile be happy for your home country doing so well and your children and grandchildren wishing you their loving best from over there. Sitting ducks . . . which one of us does not fit the description just now . . . they are managing . . .
I don’t think it will be ‘over’ I think both of the issues we are facing here in America must create a sea change in many attitudes. For that we will need to pull together.
So true C
Agreed, Celi ! I meant the ‘over’ in terms of the pandemic which has complicated other issues and taken many people to an unknown and fearful world.
Yes. All pulling together, in one direction in order to stitch up the rift…
Thanks for the gentle visit with Sheila. The animals have it all figured out. Hunker down and dream it out. I hope we wake up with a new perspective.
We are waking up!
Sweet დ
When people say “you don’t understand” without trying to help us to understand their point of view it makes me thing they themselves don’t understand and the notions are simply ingrained and they have no intention of changing or expanding their minds … 🤷♀️
Beautiful pics Miss Celi! Hugs from Queensland and hope you have a wonderful day 💖
Hmmm sorry … I tried to edit my comment below and managed to somehow put it here as a reply haha Son now there are 2! best I head back to bed and start my day again I think 😆
“You don’t understand-are not from-never grew up here” are a defensive wall against words which might effect change, or the fear of it. However, our small acts of rightness, accomplishments cloaked in everydayness don’t feel so much of a threat… let’s hope, like the duck eggs, the promises come to something ♡
Let’s hope – on both counts.
Miss you Celi – often the posts come thru to me so then I find them later. But great to hear about Sheila!!! She just loves her Buddy!! The love and loyalty of our dear animals!!! Sheila all happy and walking her Master back to bed!!! And good ole Tima!
Missing my Doggies!!!
You are staying too busy. You need to take some time off and relax with all the animals- they miss you too.
I miss them too-
I miss home too. I haven’t seen my one son and his family since Christmas (6 months…) and I haven’t been to Greece since October (8 months). I can’t even complain because I live in a lovely part of the world (Normandy,France) on a farm so,with access to the outdoors. Plus my other son and family are with us, having escaped a small flat in London before lockdown. And yet… Strange days indeed.
So often, the “you don’t understand…” etc, is used to defend what is not easily defended: attitudes, opinions and habits that sometimes don’t look so hot when examined with ‘foreign’ eyes. I’ve had some of that myself, with respect to indigenous Australians and how they are treated.
Those ducks! They are so remarkably well camouflaged; I bet a passing glance would miss them entirely, sitting hopefully and peacefully on their nests.
There’s a lot to unpack in this post. Sentences with so much between the lines. And the wise, waiting animals who don’t say anything as stupid as “You don’t understand, you’re not from here.” I am curious what “they” think you don’t understand. Curious what you’ve said that gave them that impression…though I can sort of imagine ;). I miss home too, but only what’s left of my family, really. The air (I mean, literally, the air) I breathed when I was a child. I’m sure that if I came back to the United States, I too would hear the exact same words…or at least feel them around me. I might even say them to myself. Who belongs easily in a land of such sharply drawn lines? I feel sad about so much lately. I just want to go out into the country and dig in dirt or something. But I also feel hope. And your post with all its green and sitting ducks and lovely old pigs made me feel happiness too. Thank you, Cecilia.
If the ones in the woodpile hatch will that make them Woodducks😁😁
Haha John: )
Those dear pigs!
Here’s a fitting duck news story from England – perhaps you should try incubating a couple of random eggs. If you have fertile drakes, they will try to impregnate all the females.
I’m hopeful that some good will come of this, we will learn, and we will make concrete changes. all for the common good. I’m happy your animals and people remain well, and some things never change in nature, no matter what is going on in the world, and I find that very comforting.
An intelligent human can “see” and evaluate the ways of an unjust world regardless of where they have come from. They can also join with millions of others who want change, yet be surrounded and silenced so easily. The reality is that canned only be called oppression as well. I am sorry C.
The pictures are lovely today.
Oh Celie, right now I’m so sad for my country- what I think of as the greatest in the world. I don’t understand all that’s going down but can only hope this is a giant aberration, the result of so many strange things ‘hitting the fan’ so to speak, at once. While a Utopia would be wonderful, we know that, simply because of human nature, it will never happen. None the less, hopefully we’ll come out the other side at least somewhat improved. I simply have to believe in the innate ‘decent-ness’ of most people, otherwise where is the hope? Meanwhile I’m digging in the dirt, communing with my critters (right now they’re immensely more human than humans), missing my John and just taking it day to day.
We have some ducks sitting on their second clutch of eggs. Last year’s were infertile, but this year we got lucky. Sometimes it takes a season or two for them to figure out how it all works.
Poor ol Tima. She cant help it that she is fat. She just likes to eat. 🙂