Those Sheltering Wings

In the process of making our beloved homemade blueberry pancakes this morning for our weekend treat we saw a sight in our backyard that was a bit unusual. Five baby black-bellied whistling ducks had somehow scuttled in through a small space in our fence and couldn't get out. The mother and father sat on the fence, looking down at their brood, wailing and whistling as only whistling ducks can, wanting to be reunited with their ducklings but not knowing how. The adorable little fuzzballs were trying to fly-climb up over the fence toward their parents. After much distressed whistling, two of the friends of the parents landed on the fence to help them whistle for help. Needless to say, we were overcome with a need to intervene, so my husband scooped up the ducklings and released them back into the retention pond area behind our house. Once the family of ducks appeared to be reunited (hard to tell for sure since there are a zillion black-bellied whistling ducks behind our house) we went back to making our pancakes. But I thought of a possible scene in the novel I'm about to start working on, and I realized our duckling drama could become a poignant moment when the antagonist must face her failures as a mother. She will need to see how desperate one's offspring is to reunite with one's family, to settle under those safe and sheltering wings...whether duckling or child. So, I'll be making notes today to add that scene when the time comes. A lot of life that happens around me ends up in my work, and this was the perfect backyard drama to incorporate into my novel. By the way, this new work will be, Winter in Full Bloom. Let me know what you think of that title...

Anita