A fowl day on which to valentine

Having all but forgotten that today was a holiday, Jeff offered to work down at the castle today with some visitors who were less than successful yesterday. As he contemplated leaving this morning, I decided that it might be beneficial for the rest of us to tag along so as to induce a bit of guilt in the scientists dragging my husband away from his family during an unseasonably lovely weekend day. Nothing promotes guilt quite like kids asking when daddy will be able to come home. Especially when you play "Cat's in the Cradle" in the background at the same time on your iPod speakers.

I managed to remember to bring along some bread to feed the assorted poultry populating the castle grounds since this tends to keep the kids busy for many, many minutes and keeping the kids busy for many, many minutes is a priority (although I've finally backed off of my practice of deciding which children's DVD to purchase based on the playing time per dollar since even I have my standards). As always, they enjoyed amassing a flock of jogging roosters by the big canal. The weather today was great, nearly 40 degrees and sunny, but the canals were still iced over ever so slightly.

The chicken commotion eventually attracted the ducks in the area, which flew in for a landing on the canal and appeared to be a bit taken aback by the unexpected ice. They took the landing in the same way they would on water, but sort of slid awkwardly sideways along the ice rather than easing smoothly into the water. Ducks always seem to need to maintain the appearance of composure, so they sort of shook it off in the tail and came waddling up to the kids with a cocky little, "what, you lookin' at ME?" kind of strut. After tossing the bits of bread among the crocuses for a few moments and watching the birds attack it, one of the kids accidentally threw one bit onto the ice. I think we all expected them to consider it a wash like they do when a piece of bread goes out of sight.

Au contraire.

Every duck -- and one especially stupid rooster -- went sprinting onto the ice after the wayward crumb, which was still sliding. As each duck hit the ice, its feet would skitter off in an unexpected direction although each little head would stay cocked toward the moving prize. Two dozen webbed feet scrabbled for purchase, found it, and then were propelled in another unexpected direction... often straight into another duck, which would try to bite at the colliding offender as they slid in opposite directions. It was like dogs after a ball on a hardwood floor. It was like my ice skating performances in elementary school. It was horizontal duck Plinko.

The kids and I howled to the point of collapse and then squatted on the moss until we could see and breathe again. I'm telling you, you've never seen anything this funny. Ever.

The winner of this particular contest was the duck who figured out that he just had to flap his wings and fly over to the bread. Let's hear it for natural selection. As for the rooster, his first step onto the canal took him immediately through the thin ice up to his beak; he barely managed to scrabble his way back out. I hear he's up for a Darwin Award honorable mention. Suffice it to say that the rest of our bread went to the ice dancing ducks. The chickens are just going to have to take it up a notch.