Duck

I am near the end of my cancer treatment. It has gone by faster than I had thought it would, which is a good thing. I remember being so nervous at the beginning of it - worried about staying still enough while the radiation was going on so it wouldn't affect other parts of my body. But today, I realized how all that had passed without me noticing and now I was laying there relaxed, not tensed up as before. God is good.

We're staying at a place that has a lake with a walking path around it. Yesterday, I had noticed what I thought was a stick in the water that was curiously only staying in a certain area, instead of being blown about by the wind. But I got distracted and didn't give it any more thought.

Today, while walking the path with my husband, I saw the stick again and pointed it out to him. Right away, he thought it was odd and started walking toward it. Then he said it wasn't a stick, it was a duck! Sure enough, a poor duck had gotten tangled in some fishing line and couldn't get free. And he had been there since the night before!

We told the manager of the park, who got a fishing buddy of his to come out and try to hook the line that had tangled the bird. At first, we didn't think it was going to work, but finally it did! The first video below shows the bird stuck in the water. It's the black blob in the center of the screen. The second video shows him getting free.

When the duck was hauled in, the fisherman (duckman?) found that the line was all tangled around the birds neck, pretty tight in fact. But all he had on him were pliers. So he walked off, cradling the duck, to get a knife. We left at that point, and walked back to our trailer.

It was a pretty good feeling, to have a part in saving the bird, who was probably close to exhaustion. I hope he didn't have any injuries to prevent him from flying away. I equally hope that the fisherman didn't decide to have duck for dinner.