The Pettit Family: Life with ducks

I've been asking for chickens for well....forever. Kyle finally started looking into them and somehow I now have ducks. He thinks if he uses words like "according to my research" I'll be okay with the fact that I now have ducks sitting in my children's kiddy pool instead of chickens in a cute little chicken coop.

But, according to Kyle's research ducks are more winter resilient and people often prefer there eggs. We wouldn't know about the eggs. Our ducks are not laying...yet. We called the lady we bought them from because they haven't been laying and were not eating; her response was "oh I thought I gave you the ONE that was laying." Umm, excuse me, we paid for laying ducks and she only had one in her entire bunch. We bought three, two females one male with the impression that the females were laying. We obviously don't have the one that was laying. We know she didn't spend a lot of time with her ducks so we are doing what Kyle's research says and we will hopefully get them both laying.

Our life with ducks has been a total adventure and we have only had them a week and 2 days. The night we got them we were really not prepared. I should have know Kyle was up to something as I was at a doctors appointment and upon the completion of it the back of our car was full of duck bedding and feed. Since we had no pen for them I figured they wouldn't be coming home in our completely packed car that night. I was obviously mistaken. Room was made for the ducks in the car, and since we couldn't possibly leave our ducks outside without a pen at the mercy of the wolves, coyotes (that have been frequenting our yard), and bears, Kyle made the obvious choice and let them sleep inside!!! That's right folks here in the single-wide, 2 bedroom trailer we had 2 adults, 3 kids, a teenager, 3 dogs, and 3 ducks. It seriously doesn't get any classier than that! In Kyle's defense the ducks slept in dog kennel in the living room.

The next day Kyle said he wanted the ducks to be free range. We live right along a highway, atv trail, and to our backside is dense woods. The kids and Kyle spent the morning herding them around the yard trying to keep them safe. He decided free range (during the day) wouldn't come until we move so he sent me to town to get fencing. Upon my return a few hours later I noticed the sad, worried faces on my boys. The ducks were missing. They had been missing for over 2 hours. They had searched the yard, and as much of the woods as Kyle could with 3 kids in tow. I quickly unloaded the groceries, told Kyle's brother he was in charge of the kids and set out to help the search. I spent another two hours looking with Kyle. We even went to the creek about three-quarters of a mile behind the house and we saw nothing. We even went as far as buying a duck call and attempted to call our ducks home. I told Kyle I was sorry, but I didnt think we had pet ducks anymore. Kyle was crushed. These ducks wern't cheap and he felt like he had failed. I came inside as my mom had arrived and Kyle decided to drive down the road one last time and see if he could see anything. At this point I was praying, more like pleading, Kyle and the kids were devastated, and once it got dark we knew the ducks wer doomed. Kyle was also praying. It seems Iike such a little thing to pray about, but we were sad, and we knew God was the only one that could get our ducks home. We had exhausted our resources.

I saw Kyle coming into our driveway pointing in front of him and who was waddling their little behinds home? Our three ducks. They acted like it was no big deal, they had been on an adventure. Ever see a grown man cry over ducks? I have.. It wasn't actually over the ducks, it was over the faithfulness of our loving Father and Savior.

We have had to work on trusting God these past couple of years more than ever. If you recall we put an offer on a house in July. It has been the most difficult thing we have done. It is a roller coaster ride and throughout the process we have doubted, lost faith, and given up hope, but God has always come through and taught us over amd over that we should never worry or doubt. I'll write more about that next time, but let me assure you these past few months have been stressful. We should have an answer in less than 2 weeks about the house!!! I can't wait for this to all be over.

But since this post is about ducks and not our house buying process,I'll close saying God is good and we have three happy, healthy ducks thanks to His faithfulness.

Mr. Quacks, Mrs. Quacks, and the mistress Ms. Beakley (she's the one eating in the background)