Duckling!

Tonight has been stressful. Coming home around 10 pm from our last guild meeting of the season I spotted a duckling desperately trying to get over the boulevard curb. Each time he tried to jump it, he fell back into traffic. I wish I could have kept driving, it would have been simpler, but I couldn't. I did a "Mario Andretti" u-turn (my friend calls any u-turn done at a speed over 5 miles an hour a Mario) and stopped the car. Now picture this - a crazed 6 ft tall blond woman wearing a fascinator running like a maniac down the boulevard with arms outstretched to stop the cars from hitting the duckling (it  HAD to be the night we dressed up in fancy hats at the guild!). The poor duckling was never going to make it over the curb. I don't know if I did the right thing, but I picked it up and took it into the car with me. My friend drove while I cradled the cute little thing. We searched the area it had been heading for to see if we could see the mom or the nest but nothing.

So now I have a duckling in a box in the kitchen. He's surrounded by a towel and half the box is on a heating blanket on low (I googled for info on how to keep it comfortable). I've left messages at both wildlife rehabilitation centers. Hopefully I will hear from them early in the morning. If I wouldn't have picked him up he would have been squashed, and now that I've picked him up he his motherless. Great choices :(

Sorry this isn't a quilty post as was my intention. Quilting can wait until I find a place for the duckling. My husband told me it was not going to be adopted into our family. He's a little worried. You see, as long as we have been married I've said I want a duck (half jokingly). It's been my desire ever since I saw Journey to the Center of the Earth when I was little. One of the characters, Hans, had a duck named Gertrude. I thought he was the luckiest man on earth to have a pet duck! Anyway, off to check the duckling, then it's bedtime. (Can't believe 3 dogs have not discovered there is a duck in the house! Great trackers the lot of them!)

Happy Stitching
corina

Saturday Morning Update: The little one is safe and sound in an incubator at the Pembina Veterinary Clinic. They will hold him until Prairie Wildlife can pick him up (along with another one someone else brought in).