Some stories arrive uninvited. They don’t wait for permission or formatting or quiet. They just show up, raw, unscheduled, and entirely their own.
In this case, the story flew past my head while I was gardening.
I’d been filling my deck planters with early March annuals, carefully arranging bursts of color to brighten up the lingering gray of winter. As I reached to place an amaranth into one of the long wooden boxes, a brown duck exploded from the soil in a sudden flurry of wings. She launched herself into the sky, leaving me holding the plant, stunned and guilty. Clearly, I’d missed a memo; she’d already claimed the space.
Act One: The Call
The next morning, she waddled back quietly, determinedly. She laid a single egg and vanished. Then another, and another, until ten eggs rested beneath a coverlet of down and shredded bits of my hydrangea. Gardening was paused indefinitely. I had accidentally become the audience for Mother Nature’s latest drama.
Act Two: The Trials
Once the full clutch was assembled, our hero settled in seriously. Rain, wind, my curious cat, my daily routines—nothing deterred her. I set up a webcam, built a small privacy screen, and waited. For weeks, her quiet patience became mine.
Late April brought the climax: ten tiny, downy ducklings emerged into the world beneath vigilant wings. Mama allowed me only glimpses; a flash of yellow, the whispery sounds of tiny feet shifting in planter soil. The internet assured me she’d take them to the river within a day, so another webcam was placed, ready to capture their little debut.
Act Three: The Crisis
She chose dawn, a perilously exposed time. I’d barely awakened, stretching in a robe, intending only to feed my punctual crows. But she had her narrative rhythm and made her choice. She left the nest and one by one, ducklings tumbled from the planter’s edge onto the deck.
Eight made it safely. Two disappeared.
From the upper deck, I heard her distress and realized something was preventing Mama from leaving. I went downstairs and found her two missing progeny trapped in the propane tank well, peeping frantically, small heads popping up like a miniature whack-a-mole game. Mama duck chattered anxiously from the water, unable to help, torn between the vulnerable and the safe.
Act Four: The Rescue
Knowing my crows would be eyeing these tempting little ones, I intervened quickly, lifting the tiny ducklings gently from their prison. I took one brief photo, capturing the fragile fluffy wildness before carefully releasing them. They somersaulted across the deck toward their family, leaped without hesitation into the river, and were gone.
The Sequel
With my duck family safely away, I returned gratefully to gardening, planting flowers in the same earth that had sheltered this tiny drama. The soil felt layered with the story that took place there.
Two days later, my fresh blooms lay trampled, my soil scattered again. Nestled in their place, one fresh egg. Same planter, different duck. My next task will be to build a stage for this story to play out next time, while keeping my garden safe.
I hadn’t asked for this role in Mother Nature’s story, but I became a player anyway. Sometimes, you just find yourself holding a tray of flowers when the next wild thing arrives.
Maybe that’s the real work: to stay open. To make room for stories that aren’t ours. To let them unfold beside us, even if it means replanting again and again.
