The Trouble With Ducks

This journal entry was prompted by Thoreau's writing about domestic animals and employing them for labor. He says that, "I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer." I interpret this, and the rest of the passage, as the idea that people do not need what they cannot achieve with their own hands. He says that man works for the animal within him, he can enjoy his own "worthiness", the "glory" of sustaining himself. To work alongside stronger animals such as oxen, "enslaves" him to this animal, because he is now convinced he can't live with out it, and it takes away this glory. My family does not raise oxen or any animal stronger than us anymore (we tried a goat and sheep, and we were most certainly slaves of our livestock), but we did recently get ducklings. In my entry, I argue my opposition to domesticating animals. The farmer's counter argument is that they are beneficial for the farm, which is important for the environment and promoting local food and so on, but Thoreau's point makes me question this.

Besides Thoreau's reasoning, Annie Dillard spoke to me about my ducks in a different way. I read "seeing", at around 1 a.m. this morning, which was not a result of procrastination, but the fact that writing most affects me when I am no longer sure if it is late at night or early in the morning. And it shook me, it even inspired me to drop the reading and run outside and lay in the rain and listen to the bats and look at the stars through the parting clouds. I had never realized how far the clouds are from the sky! So when I went back inside, and I saw the ducks laying under their red 75 watt bulb I cried (but not real tears, it was a blurry sort of emotion you can only feel this late at night). Not to over dramatize, but I realize, regardless of whether or not ducks can process or appreciate their surroundings in the way we have evolved to, we have taken the stars from the birds. The stars!

Update: The missing nest is not a discovery or a mystery. I checked today, and the eggs are back - maybe it was just covered for the night.