Old Mother Duck went out one day, over the hill...

There’s a park near our house that I refer to as the “lake-park”.  As its name suggests, it is a lovely little park area with a small lake, bridge and some play equipment.  In the past it was one of my favourite places to walk to as there were friendly ducks that used to waddle around everywhere and we would often see turtles and other interesting things there too. 

Unfortunately, due to the drought, the lake dried out a while ago and a local resident informed me that it was just terrible because all the creatures that had lived in the lake like the eels and fish etc were all left dried out, dead and exposed (there’s always some older people wandering around who live close to the park...and they love a chat!)

Anyway so the locals called the council who came to remove the dead lake-life and all that was left was a dried lakebed.  For this reason I had not walked to this park for quite some time but for some reason yesterday I decided to.

As we approached the park I was explaining to my son that there aren’t ducks at the park anymore but that we could just have a swing and a play.  A little old lady was walking close by and smiled at us and then when we had stopped at the play equipment approached me to have a chat.  In conversation she mentioned that in fact there was one duck that had just come back to lake and laid her eggs (out of season) and that if we looked carefully, we might actually see her ducklings.  Well I was very excited and sure enough about ten minutes after the lady left a mother duck and her ten little ducklings ventured out of the reeds and paddled around in the tiny amount of water that the lake had in the bottom.  Now the ducklings must not have been more than a week old.  They were very small and absolutely adorable!  I sat there with my small children for about 15 minutes just watching the ducklings puddle about and marvelling at God’s wonderful creation.  What an amazing thing to see the mother duck and her little ducklings surviving in such a small amount of water.

As we were leaving an old man, who had wandered out of his house to check on the ducklings told me with pride a little bit more about the newest family in the neighbourhood!  And how thankful he was for the last lot of heavy rain that had left the empty lake with a small amount of water but enough for the ducks to make a new home.  I left feeling so happy and delighted about the little ducklings and glad that they were bringing joy to the people that live around the park who pay attention to what’s happening there so closely. So I suppose my grat would be for the ‘new life’ and the seemingly small blessings and miracles that God sprinkles our life with that make it so interesting and rich.  I was just so glad that I took that walk to the park and that my children also got to experience first hand the wonder of God’s creation.