Ducking Responsibility

With absolutely nothing else of consequence on which to opine, bloviate, or remonstrate, catching the Colonel's attention this morning, he will endeavor instead to catch the five of you who regularly waste rod and cone time perusing posts hereon up on the latest fowl news from the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

In previous posts, the Colonel mentioned that the population of the Tallahatchie Free State, a virtual republic established as much tongue-in-cheek as hand-on-wallet, has grown considerably over the spring and summer. The first of April saw the addition of a flock of chickens, and, last month, the Colonel's favorite daughter completed her emigration from the Scumslime state to the welcoming shores of Lake Brenda and beckoning kudzu-clad hills of Eegeebeegee and was rewarded by the Colonel for her superior choice of residential locales with the gift of two ducklings.

Ugly ducklings.

Ugly, persistently peeping ducklings.

Ugly, persistently peeping, perpetually pooping ducklings.

The Colonel's favorite daughter spends hours each day cuddling and coddling her ducklings. No pair of waterfowl in the history of avian-human interaction has been more cuddled and coddled. The ducklings, in return, shower their adopted mother with unlimited affection, not to mention prodigious excrement. The Colonel is beginning to believe that there might actually be a government grant-worthy study possible regarding Oedipal Ornithology, with the Colonel's favorite daughter and her ducks as case in point.

The ducklings have outgrown the once spacious confines of the brooder box. The Colonel's favorite daughter believes it is time for her "babies" to have an appropriate pen of their own "like your stupid chickens."

The Colonel's suggestion that the ducks would be just fine released down at the spacious aquarian acreage of Lake Brenda was met with a mixture of scornful scowls and disagreeable discourse the likes of which the Colonel has only been the subject of from one other source--the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.

Since it took the Colonel the better part of three months to construct and predator-proof the Eegeebeegee Chicken Coop, with Integral Hen House, he was not keen on the prospect of another round of post hole and wire trench digging. The Colonel thought it much more efficacious and labor-saving to allow the ducks to share the chicken's abode.

The chickens thought otherwise.

The introduction of two little ducks to their domicile elicited such a rancorous response from the chickens that one would have thought the Colonel had just let loose a pack of coyotes in the Eegeebeegee Chicken Coop, with Integral Hen House.

Did you know that George Lucas used a recording of an irate Rhode Island Red for the vocalizations of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park?

He didn't really, but sure could have.

The Colonel was not happy with the impolite behavior of the chickens and punished them by declaring eminent domain and appropriating a portion of the Eegeebeegee Chicken Coop, with Integral Hen House, for the duck's pen.

Grand Opening and official ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate completion of the Eegeebeegee Recession Recovery Omnibus Regulatory (ERROR) Act-funded Eegeebeegee Chicken Coop, with Integral Hen House and Duck Pen will occur at a time and place of the Colonel's choosing. Invitation only.