I believe that when we turn to nature’s beauty and the amazing animal kingdom we can find insight, wisdom and joy. I share this story in the spirit of perhaps being a distraction from the daily news. I share in celebration of nature, water and the animal kingdom and I share to connect. Our duck story continues.

In a previous blog post I shared about adding sweet ducks to our little lake farm. They have brought us such entertainment over their pure joy for water. They love dirty water, clean water, truly any water, sometimes just running the hose is enough. I also shared how we thought the Mallard ducks would fly away in the fall because that is what we were told Mallards do. We even encouraged them by taking them down to the lake where there were other Mallards near by in late fall. But they did not follow their mates south.

This past summer we decided it was time to build them a proper duck pond so they could be truly happy ducks and swim everyday. Unfortunately we had to cut down some trees; fortunately the tree guy had a digger that worked perfect to dig our pond. One summer day he worked later and dug a large hole in our back yard. We decided to just fill it with out a liner and see what happens. There happens to be enough clay in our soil so the water kind of holds and our ducks had a very happy summer and fall in their pond. We are landscaping around it and hope in time in blends in beautifully, like it was always there.

We love to pause through out our day and sit by the duck pond watching them happily swim about, then duck their head down for some tasty treat. The ducks remind us of the fun and cleansing power of water. The water that we are blessed to always have available to us.

Though winter is here now and their pond is frozen it will be all the sweeter when the ice breaks.

Follows is a meditative poem I wrote inspired by a ripple of water which can be found in our recently published book, Inviting Pause, available at our local book store, Books and Company.

RIPPLE OF KINDNESS

May you be a ripple of kindness,

May you be a ripple of love,

May the water flow and connect us,

May the water clear us of anger.

May the water slow us and fill us with awe,

May the water reach us and invite us to pause.