In the morning I read Briar Rose, and in the afternoon Kal and I went to the Botanic Gardens. We had blown off the plant sale the two days previous, but more important was its being lilac season. We had a blanket, books, fruit, and chocolate, and we read on a spatch of ground under the lilacs. Also we talked, and also we called our mothers, it being Mother's Day.
(I miss using "spatch," and not using it means I don't have any spatches. My other current spatch is on the grass at the break of the otherwise semi-circular parapet that bounds the Dot Org patio. I have other spots--under the cherry tree, on the floor between the couch and the bookcase, on the porch swing--but no other spatches. City Park is too full of goose shit for good spatching.)
Before we left we ambled through other parts of the garden. The Botanic Gardens grows lilypads in a series of connected waterways (which might be ponds if they didn't have concrete or stone bottoms). Seemingly grounded walkways separate them, but there are culverts connecting them. On a rock in the middle of one roosted on one leg a mallard duck, beak in wing, and with, we counted, six ducklings underneath her. On another rock the drake also rested. Little heads, little wings, big feet, and oo! such irresistible yet ethically untouchable down. The drake flew off, and two little ones detached themselves from the pile and dropped into the water.
Of course, I had thought of bringing my camera, but because Saturday's weather changed all day, today I brought my parka, leaving no room. Not having pictures of flowers or of Kal is one thing. Not having pictures of ducklings is another matter.
These ducklings were so young they were no bigger than their eggs. If they were two days old I'd be surprised. Can they swim that well so fast? Be so adventurous so quickly? They were so young they didn't know how to sleep yet. One's head drooped forward, forward, as it fell asleep, until it rested on the tip of its beak. Several stretched their little legs out and then forgot to draw them back under their bodies. The sleeping ones were awfully cute and and the swimming ones were terribly cute and we watched and cooed.
When do you use "adventuresome" and when "adventurous"?
Eventually all the babies woke up and swam with their mother, and when they had sorted themselves out they were nine. The two most adventuresome had swum under our feet, through a dark low tunnel, to the next pond, and when the whole clutch were in the water, the duck changed ponds by walking (too big to fit through the culverts) and the ducklings paddled under her feet. Maybe they were older than we hoped, because she must have taught them that through how many repetitions?
How can ducklings be so cute and grow up to be just ducks, and how can cockatiel babies be so very ugly, undercooked dinosaurs with hedghog spikes, but grow up to be parrots? It is a mystery.
I liked Jane Yolen's retelling quite a bit. The tone that must be de rigeuer in her other, fantasy books intruded only a couple of times, and it was an inventive retelling though a lot more obvious through the reader's one hearing than it seemed to be through the characters' multiple rehearings.