February 05th, 2024

The Duck Family lived on a farm in Ayrshire, Scotland, where the weather could turn quite cold in the Autumn.   The mother duck – Debra, and the father duck – Drake, already had twin sons, Denver and Dylan, and Debra Duck, though she was a bit older now, thought that quite soon, she might lay one more egg.

At the time, the farmer and his wife who owned this farm had bought it because not only was the soil good for growing crops, but it was beautiful countryside to look out of the farmhouse windows upon, and both the farmer and his wife were kind souls who looked after their family and friends, allowing them to stay for short holidays in the farmhouse.

This particular year about which I am going to tell you, the Autumn was quite cold, and the farmer’s wife, who was a great one for sitting at night in the farmhouse beside a nice warm fire, thought of the Duck Family living in their shed and decided she would knit Debra Duck a nice warm woollen bonnet;  then she would knit Drake Duck a hat which looked rather like the hat her own husband wore when the weather turned cold.   She looked into her knitting basket, and decided she had enough wool left to knit little bobbly hats as well for the twin ducks – you know the kind of thing, a round woolly hat with a pom pom on the top – and just in case Debra Duck might lay one more egg, she knitted a tiny woolly jumper for a newly born duck egg, and kept it in her knitting bag.

There was a lovely pond beside the farmhouse, and all the ducks on the farm – Debra, Drake, Denver and Dylan – enjoyed going for a paddle in the pond each morning, both because they had fun doing this, and also to keep them warm, for as all of us know, such exercise is good for all God’s creatures, be they human or animal!   Plus, as everyone knows, ducks all get thirsty, and just as humans brush their teeth in the morning, the Duck Family would dip their beaks into the pond, have a drink of cool water, then rinse their mouths out so that they would be fresh for the rest of each day!! 
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And just as the farmer’s wife had thought, one chilly day, Debra Duck quacked to her husband, Drake Duck, that she felt she was about to give birth to yet another duckling, and she waddled into the shed to find some straw which Drake Duck pecked at to form a nice cosy “nest” in which Debra Duck could lay yet another egg!   A few days later, sure enough, Debra Duck laid one more egg, and she and her husband, and their twin sons looked down at the little egg lying there in the straw!   Wowee!    Another little duckling would soon joint the Duck Family that Autumn!   Debra Duck and Drake Duck took turns of gently sitting on the new egg to keep it warm until it was ready to crack open and join the rest of the family in that farmyard.

The farmer’s wife noticed this behaviour, and told her husband that she felt Debra Duck had laid yet another egg, and when they gently lifted her off the nest, they saw that indeed another little egg lay there!!   They smiled at one another, and gently popped Debra Duck back down on top of her newly laid egg.

Each day which followed, either the farmer or his wife would check to see if the newest duckling in the Duck Family had yet cracked his shell………..and the momentous day came when that actually happened, and everyone present looked down at the tiny little duckling, which looked as though it was wearing the lower part of the shell as a warm coat, and the top part as though it was a new hat for the winter which would come shortly after!

Visitors who came to the farm that Autumn were taken very very quietly into the shed to see the new baby duckling (to whom the farmer’s wife had given the name Dexter Duck), and were allowed to take photographs of the Duck Family to show to their own families once they went back up to the big towns and cities in Lanarkshire, and to pop into photograph albums to show to their families and friends about meeting the Duck Family which lived on a farm in Ayrshire, Scotland!
Though it is nothing to do with the birth of the newborn duckling, one of the visitors to the farm was a very keen photographer, and often entered competitions for “Best Photograph Taken This Year”, and I am pleased to be able to tell you that his photograph showing Debra Duck, Drake Duck, Denver Duck and Dylan Duck all grouped round Dexter Duck who had just been born, and was still in his tiny cracked shell won that competition!   Now wasn’t that nice?