The attack of the Duck

Ducks are nice birds. They quack, they swim around and they poop - a lot. But as far as being dangerous, they rank pretty low, maybe down there with fuzzy little lambs. But let me tell you, when I was little we had one dangerous duck!

I grew up on a good size farm. The large 2-story farmhouse sat to the south of the barns. Between the house and the barns was a large round driveway - big enough to handle farm trucks and tractors turning around. The house probably sat about 60 yards from the feedlot. My dad was raising beef steers in addition to grain crops. I must have been about 4 at the time. I was small for my age. I was a rather sickly orphan as I heard my grandmother say on ocassion when she didn't think I could hear. I had allergies and bad tonsils. Anyway, on a farm, everyone has chores and one of my chores was to take the table scraps out and dump it in the feedlot so the steers could eat it. It was mostly potato peels, lettuce leaves, carrot tops. Now this wasn't a tough job for me. I just had to walk down our short little sidewalk, across the gravel driveway, across a grassy patch and dump the bowl of scraps over the fence or in my case under the fence. The steers were safely penned in and would walk over and look at me, if one was brave enough, he'd let me pet his wet nose and ocassionally I'd get a lick from one.

The problem was our male duck. He was mean and nasty and rather territorial. One step off the sidewalk and he'd come running, his neck stretched forward, mouth open, flapping his wings and hissing. He was a good size duck his head reaching up past my waist. He terrified me.

On this particular Saturday, my mom was giving piano lessons and my grandma was over "watching" me and my sister so we didn't interrupt. Mom had told me to take out the scraps. Why I went outside alone, I don't know, maybe I was in a hurry, maybe I didn't do my chores when I was told. I don't remember, but I headed out the door by myself. I made it down the sidewalk, I walked across the driveway and dumped the bowl. I didn't think twice about the consequences.

I started back to the house, across the grassy lawn and was halfway across the driveway when...WHAM! Something grabbed me from behind! It was the DUCK! He had me by the seat of my pants. Now ducks don't bite, they grab with their long beaks that have a razor like edge for cutting grass and weeds to eat and then they pinch and twist and beat their wings. This duck had me in a death hold - pinch, twist...flap, flap, flap. pinch, twist...flap flap flap.

I screamed, the duck grabbed again this time getting a good hold on my pants. Luckily for me, they were little girl pants with an elastic waistband. Somehow with all of the pinching and grabbing, the duck managed to pull down my pants and I managed to get away. Yep, I ran screaming and crying and half naked into the house and the duck, well he had my pants that day, but we soon had him...for dinner.