The ice gathers slowly as temperatures drop and the water freezes quickly because the water is so shallow. It barely covers the grass it surrounds on the vacant lot behind the store. This small triangular shaped plot of land less than a quarter of an acre lies above the Osage Creek in my hometown.
It has been for sale for many years, but because it is stuck between a building and a creek and a street bridge, it doesn't sell. Only the smallest quick stop could fit and that would not even having parking or good access from the street. But the current residents at the pond don't care. All they want is the water and the fresh greens it holds every time it rains. These aren't the loons of Golden Pond by any means, but the ducks of Osage Creek.
The ducks along the creek live and eat, have their ducklings and find food down within the rocky walls that make up the man made creek bed. Made of rip rap and no vegetation except for a mass of weeds that threaten to overtake the rip rap every spring, the wall is steep enough to prevent people from entering the creek at this point. This makes it an excellent place for the ducks to feed nearby. No one is going to disturb them and they don't seem to mind the traffic less than twenty feet away from the marshy land they feed on either. Hundreds of car speed back and forth past oblivious ducks and their young. The ducks are only concerned with one thing; food.
The only problem with their choice of dining places is it is only open during the rainy season. The rest of the year it lies dry and flat covered with green weeds that the landowner mows once a month or so. But when it rains it is a veritable feast of overnight green grass shoots and the ducks are in heaven. They are there, in small numbers, flipping over upside down to grab the shoots under the water which is only a few inches deep.
People driving by can get a quick glimpse if traffic isn't too crazy and enjoy the hilarity of duck butts mooning the sky as each duck feeds.
Occasionally if the water remains for too long, neighboring geese muscle their way into the feeding ground, pushing the ducks over to one side because even ducks are a little afraid of these giant birds. The geese don't look as cute when overturning to feed, because of their size, their bottoms don't flip over like the duck bottoms do to eat. But soon they fly away leaving the ducks to begin scrounging again for a meal.
There is a sign in the middle of the lot offering the land for sale. Often times I am tempted to call the phone number listed and either beg the owner not to sell or offer him or her a price. I don't want to see the land developed into something the ducks cannot return to. But common sense convinces me by the time I arrive home, that I don't need the expense of a plot of land I can do nothing but pay taxes on. Yet the urge to take care of the feeding place of a bunch of ducks is strong and my husband has learned to just listen and smile knowing I am not going through with my threat to spend what little money we have on such a frivolous and every un-businesslike adventure. I worry what the new business that just moved into the building next to the lot will do about the ducks. It is a farm and feed store so I am hoping maybe they'll purchase the lot and encourage the ducks to keep coming and maybe even dig the natural depression where the water gathers during a rain, into a regular duck pond. Maybe instead of me purchasing the land, I could encourage the owners to do so. It may increase the traffic in their store to add a viewing stand out the back door where customers could come and watch the duck butts.
Maybe I am too much of a Pollyanna to consider such ideas are good. But you never know. The ducks chose this place and as long as they are happy, maybe I should just be too. You cannot guarantee such serendipitous things in life. Sometimes you just have to enjoy those moments that pop up like a rain filled depression in the ground that gives food to passing fowl and animals. Our society tries too hard to make such things last too long instead of just enjoying the moment. So for now, during this dry period of January, I will wait for a rainy day and hope for the depression to fill and the ducks to return, pushing away the ice and feed. They at least don't seem to mind that this place is merely a fowl-weather feeding station.
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