Sometimes, people are utter bastards. So is the weather.

On top of the stress, some bastard stole 17 of my ducklings.

I am, as you can expect, rather angry about this.

The ducklings were here and accounted for at 4.30pm when we got home from Isaac’s psych assessment and I couldn’t see them at 7pm last night when I was on the phone to Mum. At the time, of course, I just assumed that the mother had put them and herself to bed already, and I filled up the water containers, didn’t bother doing a full head count and went back inside.

This morning when I woke up to a frost, I figured I’d best check to make sure everything had survived the night.

Outside, I found 3 ducklings with one mother and one mother with no babies at all.

A quick walk around the paddock found one duckling in a nest that they’d slept in, obviously suffocated – this duckling belonged with the 3 other live babies. (How can I tell you ask? They were slightly different colours, because of a 2 day age difference). Obviously that mother had slept indoors with her 4 babies.

A long slow walk around the paddock turned up nothing.

A detailed examination of all the water containers, the blackberries, the septic tank, the marshy back corner and ALL the surrounding paddocks (risking electrocution and plover attacks), plus the sides of the road and the paddock across the road, showed nothing.

17 ducklings, vanished.

Last night, as I cooked dinner, Maisy barked at the window. We ignored it, being busy, figuring she was barking at the cat. Now, we assume she was barking at whoever was in the yard, stealing ducklings. Cars and people stop at the front of our house all of the time, so it’s not something we pay attention to anymore.

Moral of the story? Always check when the dog is barking. Always.

I’ve been on the phone to the police this morning who agree with me, that losing 17 is definitely theft, as a hawk or snake would only take 1-2, and not 17 in a 3 hour time frame. And if they’d died of anything else, I would have found remains.

I am so upset. They’re only 4-5 days old and so so fragile still. They won’t survive if they’re separated from each other and they’re probably already doing badly without their mother. I’m worried about them, hand rearing ducklings is hard work. The RSPCA has also been notified, so that they know to ring me if ducklings start arriving there.

On top of the duckling theft, we had a major frost that wasn’t forecast on my weather forecast and I lost nearly the entire contents of my garden.

All of my tomatoes are dead, or dying. I didn’t even get any to ripen on the bush this year. I’ll save what I can for green tomato chutney and for ripening inside, but still. That’s over 100 tomato plants dead.

All my pumpkins died. I was able to rescue 3 half grown pumpkins off the vines, but all the vines are dead.

All of the zucchini. All of the corn, the basil, the cucumbers.

Everything.

You know how sometimes it just feels like too much? Yeah, this is too much. The stuff in my garden was for preserving and bottling, to get us through winter, on a tight budget. The ducklings would have been sold at the growers market in a few months.

I am Not Impressed.