Ducklings

Okay, so maybe I've lost my mind, but Grayson and I bought two ducklings while we were out yesterday afternoon.

I've wanted to get some ducks to live in my vegetable garden and eat bugs. I've read a couple of articles and web sites that say ducks are great at keeping your garden pest free. But lets face it, I bought them primarily because they're ADORABLE. Oh my god, they're the cutest things on the planet!

Grayson had named them before we were out of the store with them: Ping and Pong. (The lighter colored one is Ping, in case you're curious).

So we left Atwoods with two ducklings in a cardboard box, a warming lamp, 40 pounds of duck chow, and a small bale of pine shavings for their cage.

They peep and peep, and eat from Grayson's hand, and they are already getting much tamer and don't freak out when you reach in to the box or pick one of them up. Grayson adores them. He's had them out on the floor in the Red Room, playing with them and feeding them.

Gray thinks I'm nuts, of course. Probably I am. I will have to build a fence around the front of the garden, and an enclosure for them inside the garden where the neighborhood cats can't get at them. But they can't move outside for another 5 or 6 weeks, so there's time to get their little home all ready for them. In June they can move outside and start earning their keep as bug snappers.

For now, though, they are just the world's most adorable pets.