Life in a Nutshell

Saving Tippy

"Daddy, can you come look at my duck? He keeps falling over."

My dad looked at me with doubt. But I was insistent. My duck was fine one day, and then he kept falling over the next.

"All right," he sighed. I'll come take a look after lunch."

...

I didn't have a normal childhood.

Let's just get that out on the table right now. At least normal for what the 1980s were comfortable with. For a few years in the early 80's my parents were caretakers for a two-hundred-acre Weyerhaeuser tree farm and vacation property on the far end of a rural coastal lake in Oregon. The property was boat access only, and while it was beautiful, the housing situation was interesting.

From the ages of six until nine, I lived in a separate house from my parents. When I got scared in the middle of the night because there were strange noises, I was on my own. The rest of the main house was empty ten months out of the year. My folks lived in the studio caretaker's cabin. If there was an emergency, I had to run outside, and down a quarter mile path to my parent's cabin to get them. It was terrifying, because there were bears and mountain lions. Real ones.

Talk about Gen X latch-key kids. I learned to fend for myself a lot earlier than most.

My parents weren't completely neglectful. I had three meals a day, that I didn't need to prepare. I had clean clothes and there weren't drugs or crime in the house. My mother felt awful about me living on my own, but there was no room in their cabin for me. It was barely big enough for their own bed in the main room, and the small kitchenette and tiny bathroom were also quite small. When I was sick, she'd make a pallet on the floor in front of the small woodstove in the cabin, and I slept there.

Looking back, I didn't realize until recently this was an abusive scenario. My father was an alcoholic, and periodically a possessive violent one, he was trying to isolate me from my mother. She wouldn't have ever let that separation happen had it been her own decision. In her way, I think she thought it would protect me. Neither of us realized it was abuse, neglect and a tool for control at the time. We just believed it was because of the lack of space. It did however, completely isolate us from each other.

Dad insisted the agreement was that only I could sleep in the main house, not anyone else. The retired couple that owned the property were quite willing to accommodate me. In a way it was unique and fun. I had a whole house, and a private bathroom. But it was lonely and terrifying at the same time.

My mom begged for me to get a dog to sleep in the house with me, so I wouldn't be so scared at night, and dad relented. So thankfully I had our dog Trixie to sleep in the house with me after the first year. It helped. But since I was an only child, I was still lonely.

To make up for the gaps, my parents filled my life with animals. This property was huge, and we had an entire menagerie of livestock and pets. My mom had three milk-goats for milk and cheese. We had herds of chickens and ducks for eggs and meat. We had two cats, a dog, a horse and a donkey at one point. The property was filled with wild deer, and the lake was full of fish, water birds, otter, Egrets and Loons. It was a veritable paradise to grow up in.

However, the predators were thick as well. The hillsides behind us were prime habitat for Black bear, Osprey, coastal bobcats, and mountain lions. Between the otters bobbing for ducklings and the bobcats hunting our chickens and ducks, most of our animals were doomed.

The spring I was eight, there was a duck massacre that happened on the lake. The big bobcats finally succeeded in breaking in under the chicken and duck houses, pulled the ducks down through the board floor from below and ate their legs and breasts off from underneath. It was horror-movie level slaughter, and it left quite a few orphan ducklings from the spring hatching.

After most of a year, and losing over thirty animals, my mother was livid. She decided to get the Department of Fish and Game involved. She brought in pictures of the half-eaten chickens and ducks, and got full permission to trap those nuisance animals. She became the most vicious hunter I've ever seen. Lethal with a gun and trap, she caught a whole family of bobcats that year without any regrets about the mayhem she was causing.

My sometimes-vegetarian hippy mama had been pushed a bridge too far. Those were her babies, and she was done feeding them to the carnivores on the hillside. I was incredibly proud of her. She still has the hides of those bad cats tucked safely in a trunk.

But it didn't fix the situation of the orphan ducklings. Most of them were old enough to be herded around by the other adults and eat the cracked corn my parents bought to supplement their diet.

All but one. He was only a day or two old and was still wobbly on his little legs. I fell in love, and packed him around with me all day, catching bugs and picking tender grass to see if I could get him to eat.

I begged my dad to keep him, and he couldn't refuse. He set me up with a big cardboard box, and a heat lamp in the bathroom of the main house. Since I was alone over there, it was completely my responsibility to feed and water the duckling twice a day to make sure he didn't starve.

I was very diligent. I had a small bag of finely cracked corn and filled his food and water bowls daily with fresh water and feed. But if you know anything about ducks, they are the messiest creatures around. Pretty soon that box was filthy with scattered corn and sludgy duck goo. Being eight, it didn't register that I needed to completely clean the box.

After about a week, I noticed an interesting smell. The box smelled kind of sweet. It was strange, but everything seemed okay. My duck was growing and was really chowing down on the corn I was feeding him. I was quite proud of myself.

But at the start of the second week, ducky would eat quickly and then start staggering around the box, and eventually tip over; bill down, ass up. I was horrified and would set him upright in hopes it would help. I always made sure he had fresh water and topped off the corn. However, I noticed the sweet smell was a bit stronger.

By the start of week three, I was really worried. My duck was usually tipped over and wasn't eating as much. I couldn't keep it a secret any longer. That day I asked my dad to please come check on the duck.

He dutifully followed me into the main house, down a long hallway to my ancient 1930's salmon pink bathroom.

"Daddy, see — he keeps falling over. He's tippy, and I don't know what's wrong?"

My dad came in the room, took a big whiff, peeked in the box, and almost fell over laughing.

He was gasping for air he was laughing so hard.

I was completely baffled. I don't know what has gotten into my father. He didn't say what was wrong. He was laughing too hard.

"I have to get your mother..." He left and brought my mother back with him, dishtowel in her hands.

He beamed at her, trying not to laugh. "What do you think is wrong with her duck?" She took a sniff too and started to giggle.

She turned to me. "Have you been cleaning the box out regularly?"

My stomach dropped. "No, I haven't. I just make sure he's fed."

My dad was still laughing hard. "Well, kiddo, you've been making booze in that box. The combination of the heat lamp, water and corn was making you some fine sour mash. Your duck is drunk, that's why he keeps falling over."

"You have a drunk duck. If you clean his box out and then give him fresh water and corn, he'll be fine."

Both my parents helped me replace the box and the contents and after three days of clean water and corn. "Tippy" the duck was no longer tippy. He was walking and quacking and being a regular little trooper, seeing as I had tried to give him alcohol poisoning just a few days earlier.

In another week, I turned him out with the other ducks, and after the bobcat massacre of 1982 he had a good long life for a duck. Especially one that had such an inauspicious beginning.

By the time I was nine, we had moved off that property to a proper ranch with a nice house. I was back to living with my parents and my mother had gained a little confidence from her bobcat hunting days. She was able to stand up to my dad a bit more, and never let the isolation and control be quite so absolute.

I've always made the extra effort not to get my animals drunk either.