Gertrude of Gertrudes: Destiny Is All
This is Gertrude, of the Original Gertrudes (sort of like Uhtred Son of Uhtred for those who have been captured as I have by the Last Kingdom - though you may have to be of Viking (long live the Norse!) or Saxon heritage to give a shit about that story)...
Gertrude, an intrepid Khaki Campbell, is the sole survivor of two rounds of ducks with whom we have had the honor of cohabitating. She survived losing her two sisters back in 2020 (I would rather have Shingles then try to nurse a duck through being egg-bound) and then she survived losing the second generation of ducklings...all of whom were massacred by a raccoon in the dawn hours last Fall while just waking in their little duck house. She did not slip past the raccoon unscathed - suffering a broken neck and a fractured pelvis. (I wouldn't blame you if you are thinking, "good Christ, Christiane, it’s just a duck! Surely you should have put her out of her misery and moved on!?!" But we didn't.) We nursed her - which, when it comes to ducks, looks like staying as invisible and out of the way as possible while finely attuning and attending to her every need. (Which, now that I think of it, is quite similar to how I like to be tended to when wounded...thank you Jeff). Speaking of Jeff who, in his endless care and creativity, realized we needed to raise her water in order for her to drink. She hobbled around, alone and no doubt in pain, while her body and her spirit did the extraordinary work of healing. Why she bothered to heal, I cannot tell you. She was crushed, forlorned...and yet utterly unvanquished.
After a week or so, still unable to use her neck, with her head resting listlessly to the right side of her quickly diminishing breast, she positioned herself alongside her trough, so her deep green duckbill could dip sideways into the water...her beloved water (a duck's true soul-mate). There she would carefully sip. Like she had found heaven. Like she was drinking the forgotten benevolence of The World. She would dip her bill in the water and just breath a long slow out-breath.
After a few more days, she began nibbling at the chopped kale and grain we would give her each morning. And, with those extra calories and courage in her tiny 2 pound body, she began talking to us, telling us all that occurred. Letting us know that what happened was unimaginable, to be enclosed in a small house amidst a raccoon assassination of her sisters. To have been in the claws and vicious canine fangs of the raccoon and not to have been killed. To be so mauled and not to die. To be so together and then to be so alone. (And surely by now you are saying, good goddess Maeve, Christiane....she's just a duck. She is not grieving or remembering or anything other than being a water fowl…without a stitch of consciousness!" But if you haven’t lived with ducks you really have no idea.) So we did what you probably would have done. We listened to every story she told. And as she got stronger, she told A LOT of stories, at top volume, for the entire neighborhood to hear...starting at 6am and going until 8pm. (Apologies to Connie and Hale, Brie, Sarah and Christopher.)
Feverishly consulting the duck forums I discovered that ducks are not solitary birds. They cannot be alone without suffering any number of emotional and physical maladies. Of course, that’s true. Isn’t that true about all of us? Even though it was early October, and not the time to raise ducklings, (because they need to be kept at 90º until they are three weeks old and then at 75º until they are fully feathered) we quickly ordered (too many) Welsh Harlequins to eventually be Gertrude’s new sisters. So within a week four one-day-old tiny Welsh Harlequin down duckling balls arrived in the mail. After three months of nightly warm baths and shredded kale orgies, lots of snuggling and pooping on the couch, they were fully feathered out and ready to join a by-now-hoarse-with-all-the-storytelling Gertrude out in the big-duck house. On a frigid Winter Solstice – the darkest, shortest day of the year – as one might be tempted to feel the despair, but also perhaps the mystery of The World, as it dropped to a record -8º, Gertrude had her sister-flock back.
Well…as of today, they’re all still with us. One senior Gertrude, of the Original Gertrudes, (Gertrude of Gertrudes) and four adolescents, Gertrude juniors. It took months, almost 8 of them, for Original Gertrude to start laying again. We weren’t expecting her to ever lay another egg. And we didn’t need her to. But, of course, Warrior Gertrude began laying again. Just in time to show the Harlequins how it’s done. We are now awash in delicious, nutrient-dense duck eggs. And we are awash in ducks! And we are awash in the living story of warriorship and resilience. Of love and feathers…and a helluva lot of quacking. I cannot describe how precious these creatures are to me. They are my partners in all things soil. They adore dandelion greens. They hunt for Japanese beetle larvae, they love to stay up way past sunset, usually huddling in the current bushes and listening to Gertrude of Gertrudes tell the story, over and over again, of how she survived the 5am raccoon raid on her precious family, and the war wounds she incurred as a result (she still walks with a bad-ass hitch), of how time is the miraculous weaver of healing and possibility, of the truth that Death is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen to us, and how important it is to make sure we live while we are alive. At a time of such impossible unraveling, when there is mounting insanity and unimaginable, new levels of human ignorance and lostness every day, Gertrude is my daily live-in reminder that there is an older, remarkably well (thriving in fact), Story still unfolding. She is the Feathered Warrior above all warriors. She is my downy, crinoline-lined, hollow-boned, old world instinct-ruled guide to the song beneath the noise and the center of my own broken-open heart.
