Bonnie and Clyde

During that time in my life when I seemed to be on a never-ending search for the perfect pets, the girls and I just happened to go to a feed and seed store. I realize people don’t “just happen” to go to feed stores, but that’s where we ended up. And there we found some tiny, baby ducks and geese. Now who could resist something like that . . . all fluffy and cute and wanting a nice home and a nice family. I sure couldn’t resist, and we certainly qualified, so I bought a baby duck and a baby goose and brought them home, installing them in a wire pen which I put on the hutch in our living room. Bonnie was the duck and Clyde was the goose. I didn’t think they were old enough yet to know how to swim, so I didn’t let them out in the backyard where we had 3 fishponds waiting for them. They seemed to do just fine in the house, but they were pooping all over our floor. They pooped right through the wire of their cage, so I had to put foil all around the pen. As they grew, I would add more foil . . . higher and higher. One day my parents came to visit, and my dad was horrified. He said they knew how to swim and always had, so he scooped them up and took them out to the fishpond. Bonnie and Clyde were extremely happy out there, and I was happy to get rid of the messy pen in my living room.

Bonnie and Clyde thrived in our backyard and grew bigger and bigger. Clyde became quite confrontational, chasing the girls around the yard and pecking at their legs. My dad was sitting on the deck furniture one time, and Clyde rushed up to him and began pecking at his pants. We could all put up with a little bit of that as they were having such a good time in the yard and swimming in the fishponds. But one day as I was standing in the middle of the big pond – I can’t remember why I was doing that but that’s beside the point – I watched Bonnie and Clyde who were there with me. I suddenly realized they were eating my fish! I thought they were just being nice and keeping me company. I had been hoping to raise baby fish to sell to stores, but the big fish were eating the babies as soon as they were born, and now Bonnie and Clyde were making things worse. So we decided they had to go. It wasn’t just that they were eating the fish – they were making an awful mess of our back yard. So we took them to a beautiful lake by a golf course in our area that had many ducks and geese already. This way Bonnie and Clyde would be able to run free with their peers. They looked happy as we left although I’m not sure how that’s supposed to look with ducks and geese. We went back to visit several times and could always find them. However, after Thanksgiving, we couldn’t find Clyde anymore. Now I don’t think anything bad happened, but I’ve always wondered about the timing of his disappearance. I hope they are both happy wherever they are.