George the Duck

I worked at the elementary school the entire year in the library. A few days before summer break the ground duty brought in this baby duck and said they could not find the mom anywhere and that it was in the middle of the playground stranded. She knew that we had chickens and wanted to know if I would care for it. The whole time I was thinking about how much Stella would love this, so of course I said yes. She named him George. They were inseparable all summer. Stella was able to get him so tame, well just for her but she loved that he wanted to snuggle with her. We set a little kiddie pool in the back yard so he could swim and splash around. It was the cutest thing. You can see him snuggling under the blanket in the third picture. that was a normal occurrence. Most times she would bring him in the house and he would snuggle with her and fall asleep while she watched a movie. She loved him but also knew he was getting bigger and getting his flight feathers. We told her we could clip his wings and he could just become her pet. It was a really hard decision but she said he is a wild duck and deserves a chance with other ducks. I was so proud of her. We were planning on taking him at the end of summer but George had other plans. We had a couple of big scares where he flew out of the yard. We found him and brought him back but we didn't want him just getting loose in the neighborhood because there are a lot of dogs. On July 2 we decided to take him to Wheeler Farm. Stella said her emotional good-bye at the house. When we got to Wheeler Farm and she saw all of the ducks and the two big ponds she was really happy for him. She set him on the fence, we thought he would fly right in to them but he didn't. George sat on the fence next to Stella for probably 20 minutes just watching the other ducks. He turned his head and touched her lips with his beak, it was almost like he was giving her a kiss good-bye. After that he spread his wings, flapped, and flew into the pond. He was a little shy at first and didn't want anything to do with the other ducks. We stayed and watched him for about an hour.  He was easy to spot because he was the only duck going crazy in the water. I'm sure he was amazed by how big the pond was. We went back and visited him two other times in the following weeks. Each time he seemed to fit in with the other ducks even better. On the last visit it was hard to figure out which one was him. (An interesting fact, boys don't get their true coloring for almost a year after they are hatched.) Stella has such a tender heart and she has such a love for animals. I know this was not an easy decision for her. She loved George but that love is also what pushed her to letting him have a wild normal life. So proud of my girl.