"Penguins. Penguins don't fly."

Our neighbor bought ducklings a week before Dawn and I got ours. They also have a fresh litter of kittens. Today we walked our ducklings Sacha and Ace across the yard to visit "The Neighbor Lady". This is what transpired.

"OH MY GAWD!!!! YER DUCKS ARE SO TINY!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! Oh gawd, ya got ta see ours. KEVIN!!!!! KEVIN, Bring the ducks out here! Oh gawd, oh gawd ya'll got ta see ours."

Kevin came out from behind the house holding two of the largest yellow ducklings known to man. After my initial shock I realized that they were Pekin, or Long Island ducklings. So I said, "Oh wow! Those are Pekin ducklings! How cool! I love how big they get. I saw them online and thought about getting some."

The neighbor lady said, "Oh they don't peck. Chickens will peck but not ducks."

I said, "No, Pekin is the kind of duck they are. They probably won't fly and are really loyal from what I've read. They act just like dogs."

"Who told you they peck? And all birds can fly. That's why they called birds, duh. Ya can hold these ducks all day long an they won' peck ya a'tall."

I just looked directly in her foggy blue eyes and said, "Penguins. Penguins don't fly."

She wrinkled up her face and said, "Well how tha hell are they supposed fly in a snow storm. Plus they got polar bears after em all the time so they got ta swim anyway."

At this point I looked to Dawn for help but she was of no use. I found her standing on the porch looking at me with a huge smile on her face, holding a kitten and going, "Kitten, Kitten, Kitten, Mike, Kitten, Mike, Kitten! LOOK! MIKE! KITTEN!" Clearly I was alone in the conversation.

Kevin, the neighbor lady's husband, walked up to me with the ducklings and handed one to me saying, "Don't worry, they won't peck you. S'long as ya don' squeeze em they'r real nice."

"There's too much carbon monoxide commin out yer pores."

I stepped on a wasp today. I dropped to the ground like a sack of crap and rolled around in pain. My neighbor lady saw it and asked if I was ok. I said that I had been bit by a wasp. This was her reply:

"If you git bit by a wasp it means thers to much carbon monoxide commin out yer pores."

I said no, I stepped on it, and its carbon dioxide from our breath that they go toward. She said, "HAHAHAHA, everyone knows that you can't breathe carbon dioxide or you will die."

I asked her if she was still in nursing school. She said, "Um, yeah, but its hard cause they git real detailed wit things. They should'n make us learn stuff we wo'n use. Like do nurses really need to know anatomy? We don' do surgeries do we? So if we aint cuttin people up then why we got ta know it?"

Her level of stupid made the pain in my foot go away for a few moments. Maybe she will make a good nurse after all.

"Mike, there's emergency vehicles in our driveway!"

This afternoon Vincent and I noticed that the neighbor was burning some leaves again. This time is was near the pond in the back of the property. We could see a few white wisps of smoke trace its way through the pines. We were both glad that he wasn't near the house so we ignored him and kept snorting around in the woods.

Angela and Vincent enjoying a normal fire
at Dad and Vincent's Beaver Lodge Campsite

There are so many things for a dad and his boy to get into on 4 acres of land. We made a camp site called "Dad and Vincent's Beaver Lodge Campsite", built a fire ring, tried to catch a squirrel, climbed trees, learned how to spit for distance and then for accuracy, and fell in the pond.

All of a sudden we heard Dawn calling for us from the house. So, as we were trotting back home Vincent noticed that the smoke had become much thicker where the neighbor was burning. Now, instead of white whips tracing gentle trails through the pines, there was a solid white cloud rolling skyward. It was heavy smoke, the kind that you can't see through and that never gets far off the ground. I've now learned why that kind of smoke is so thick.  Its the beginning of a serious forest fire. The smoke has stuff floating in it like leaves and sticks and ticks and rabbits and rakes and pine cones and neighbors and shovels and all manner of hell. Maybe that's why firemen wear helmets?

Dawn was standing in the back yard when we came out of the woods. "Mike, there's emergency vehicles in our driveway and the guys are running toward the neighbors woods. What were you two doing back there? I told you not to mess with any fires Mike!"

"We didn't!" We turned to look back at the woods. "Holy cow that's a big fire! It didn't look like that an hour ago did it Vincent?"

"Nope."

"See honey, we didn't do anything!" I was more worried about our own hides than anything else at that moment.


"Well go see whats going on. I hope that idiot doesn't burn down our forest!"

"Mom, Dad said we can't call him an idiot cause its our job to help him learn."

"I'm sorry honey, you are right. That man has problems. Now go with Dad and see whats happening."

We didn't want to look nosey and just go waltzing onto the neighbors property like we owned the place. So Vincent came up with a great plan. "Dad. We can sneak through the woods by the pond and see if we can see whats going on. The wind isn't blowing that way. Plus, if the fire comes we can just jump in the pond."

"Good idea buddy! Then Mom won't get mad at us for having muddy shoes already."

"OH DAD! Lets bring the camera! Then we can show mom when we come home!"

A few of the volunteers and the red pump truck on the right.

Vincent with fire department in background

So that's how we got the pictures you see above. The volunteer fire department put out the fire within a few minutes. Thankfully he only burned about a half acre of woods on his own property.

"He's gonna kill us all!"

We live next to the village idiots! Look what he did when he came home late last night. I was sitting in the front room with Vincent. We were watching a Regular Show rerun when all of a sudden we could see the porch glowing at us through the living room windows. We threw our shoes on and ran outside to find the neighbor burning a HUGE pile of leaves right next to the propane tank. Vincent thought it was mighty cool to see flames licking 20 feet into the lower branches of the pines. I on the other hand was dumbstruck that of all the places I could have lived in this entire country, site unseen, that I ended up next to this idiot. So after watching the flames belch into the sky for a while, Vincent got bored with dancing around the inferno and we went to bed. I hope my subtle rebukes and tidbits and hints about fire safety were not lost on either the neighbor or Vincent. Vincent actually said, "Dad, that tanks got gasoline in it doesn't it? He's gonna kill us all!" To which I replied, "Well buddy, its not gasoline but its just as dangerous. You are right, what he is doing is very dangerous but we have to make sure that we don't call him an idiot. Some people aren't very smart and its our job to help them learn when we can."