Author: Veronica

My older ducks are pains in the arse to catch. They’ll happily eat their wheat at my feet, but if I’ve got to catch them for whatever reason, then I get prepared to run around the paddock for an hour, net in hand.

That is why I was so relieved when the duck who needed catching and attending to was one of the 8 week old half grown ducklings. His eye was looking weepy and swollen and I’d been keeping an eye on it, but today, I could tell that he definitely needed seeing to.

I put down some wheat and amongst the rush of poultry, I was able to get behind him and in one swift movement, grab him and hold him.

He squeaked and fought, of course, but an 8 week old duckling isn’t the strongest creature on the earth and my bendy hands were able to cope with him. I tucked him up under my arm and poked his eye.

Like I suspected, it had a grass seed in it.

Now, grass seeds are the bane of my life. I fucking hate them.

When I was a kid, we used to stay with friends and along with their children, I would walk to the local shop. It wasn’t a long walk, as you could cut off around 800m by cutting through a paddocky area. A paddocky area that was never mown and was always knee deep in grass seeds. I would prefer to walk the extra 800m than have to spend the next 2 days cleaning grass seeds out of my shoes and socks.

Our grass in the paddock lately has been reminding me of the paddock as a kid, as I traipse through it and fill my shoes with grass seeds. Fucking grass seeds.

I’m not a fan.

Neither was this duck, who badly needed medical help and who was going to fight me every inch of the way.

With both my hands and most of my upper body involved in not accidentally letting the duckling go, I was limited to asking Amy to find me tweezers.

After a bit of direction and a bit of yelling and some screaming from Amy because ‘MUMMY HAS A DUCK!!!!’ I elected to bring the duckling inside and hope like fuck I didn’t accidentally drop it inside the house.

I growled at Nathan, who was still in bed, who pointed out where he’d put the tweezers. Contorting myself into a pretzel to be able to hold the duck and yet, still reach the top shelf, I found the tweezers.

FINALLY.

What I hadn’t counted on was the third eyelid.

I sat outside in the barbeque area, with the duckling on my lap, struggling and then flopping back exhausted (making me worry it’s heart had given out and who gives a fuck about grass seeds then?).

Tweezers in hand, I had a look at his eye.

I could see the middle of the seed. I could see all the swelling and the pus and there….

No. Third eyelid closed.

I spent the next 20 minutes, holding open his external eyelid with two fingers, holding his head with the remaining three fingers, leaning on him with my top half and trying to gouge his eye out with tweezers.

Just when I was ready to yell at Nathan that I needed an extra set of hands, I found it. The end of the seed. White and pussy, it had been poking into the corner of his eye for a few days.

Another 10 minutes and some frantic flapping (him), swearing (me) and excited screeching (Isaac) and I managed to catch hold of the end with the tweezers.

One swift movement and the grass seed was out. The poor duckling flapped and peeped, but while poking around in his eye for half an hour and finally removing the seed must have hurt, it wouldn’t have been half as bad as letting the infection take hold and destroy his eye entirely.

I had a good look and with a tissue, cleared up the rest of the infection and weepiness. I would have liked to bathe it in salt water too, but I was out of hands entirely.

Fixed, mostly, I took him back outside to his siblings and came inside to photograph the grass seed.

It was huge. Probably 3 1/2 times the size of the ducklings actual eye? Coin for scale.

For the US readers, our 10c coin is just barely under an inch in diameter. 2.36cm

I have a phobia of pigs.

It’s not a very big phobia, I can look at photos of pigs easily and as long as I’m on the other side of a good sturdy fence, I don’t have a problem.

But remove that fence and I’m scared.

When I was a kid, we got 3 pigs from a local farmer to raise. Being creative types, we called them Wilbur, Wilbur and Charlotte.

The two Wilburs only had 1 ear each. The farmer said that his horse had gotten into the habit of lifting the piglets up by their ears, tearing them right off. I’m not sure we ought to have believed him, but there we go. We had pigs that were missing an ear.

Charlotte however, she was missing both ears. Pigs are scary looking as it is, without someone tearing off their ears and making them look even huger. Ears make animals look lovable and cute. Not having ears makes them terrifying. I suspect this is also why I dislike snakes.

Our pigs grew and grew and grew. Wilbur and Wilbur were eventually slaughtered for meat, leaving us with just Charlotte.

Charlotte was fucking huge.

I’m talking, 200kg+ huge. HUGE.

She was also the smartest pig and would not stay locked up, behind the safety of the wire. Her favourite place to sunbathe was down in the flower garden, below the house.

Also near the flower garden was our outside toilet.

One day, I went outside to go to the toilet, as you do. I wasn’t in there for very long, before Charlotte realised that someone was outside and came over to the toilet to investigate.

She thought: ‘FOOD! Fooooood foooood foooooooood. Small human might have foooooood’.

I thought: ‘OMFG I’m going to die in here, she’s not going to realise I don’t have any food and knock the toilet down and I WILL DIE. Or she won’t and I’ll be stuck in here forever and DIE. Or I’ll have to leave and she’ll realise I’m leaving, realise that I don’t have any food and trample me and I WILL DIE.’

I was very little and Charlotte was very big. She lay down near the toilet door, effectively blocking me in the toilet, convincing me that death was just around the corner.

I burst into tears and screamed for my mother.

What felt like hours later, my mother heard my tiny little cries for help and called the pig away with some pellets. I’d probably been trapped for no more than 10 minutes, but phobias don’t care about that kind of thing.

Until we sent Charlotte to the market a few weeks later, my toilet trips were fraught with angst and danger and I was convinced that the pig was going to cause my death.

And that is why I’m scared of pigs.

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