A Surprise

One day last week, I was sitting in the rocking chair and holding Maddie.  All 3 of the rest of the girls were on the couch watching their daily movie, but Maddie was needing some Mommy snuggle time.  I happened to notice a familiar face drive by our house.  I did a quick glance around the living room- it wasn't too bad for company. 

But then that familiar face didn't ever come to our door.  A minute or two later, I saw him putting his seat belt on as he was driving away.

I found this odd.  We live on a dead-end street, and as far as I knew, Ryan's friend didn't know anyone else on our small street.  But what do I know?

After lunch, the girls went outside to play.  A little while later, Emma and Elizabeth came inside bursting with exciting information.  "Mom- one of the quail turned yellow!"

(If you remember from this post, we are the proud owners of Ryan's latest project- 10 quail.)

The quail have long since lost their yellow fuzz and have been strutting their grown-up feathers for a week or two now.  They don't just revert back.  And I'm pretty sure I have my craft paint securely locked up, so that can't be it.  So I followed the girls outside to see what the fuss was about.

Inside the quail box, there was this little guy-

 

"Guys, that is not a quail.  That is a duck."

"Whoa!  Cool!  How did that get in there??"

So I did a little calculation in my head. 

1. Ryan was gone, and hadn't mentioned anything about adding another mouth to feed before leaving for work. 

2. Bishop R gave Ryan the quail eggs, and was aware of the box in the backyard housing the quail.

3. I just witnessed Bishop R driving by our house not 2 hours ago.

Hm....

Sadly, "Ducky" was shivering and getting pecked at in the quail house, so I found the heat lamp again and put Ducky in a recycle bin.  Ryan has since blocked off a corner of the quail house so the quail don't pick on Ducky.  Quail can be quite vicious, apparently.

The girls are happy to pick up, pet, squish and love him in all forms.  Ducky is lucky we haven't "loved" him to death.  He seems to like us.  He follows the kids around when we let him out of the box.