I went out to feed the ducks at 1:45 and found that Lilly had passed away. She was sitting by her little pond. Piper was standing over her, guarding her. When I picked her up to move her to the gate, he followed me. When I left to go find something to set her in, I came back and found him standing over her again.

Look at her when she came to us on May 24, 2008... she was just a little baby who lost her sibling to pneumonia. She had it too because her owners put her out on a pond when she was too little.

And then came Piper who was dropped off with his sibling a few weeks later. His sibling died too from a predator attack and then rescuers pulled him out of a drain pipe.

Here they are the day they met on June 15, 2008... and they have been together ever since. Until today...

Here they are on October 22, 2011... just recently...

And here they are again November 8, 2011... napping together... so peaceful and happy...

 

One moment here... the next, her spirit soared off with the wind... Such fragile little darlings...

I called Jenn in TN. Only a few weeks ago, at the start of November I told her I had a terrible premonition that we were going to lose someone very dear to us. I said it wasn't going to be immediately, maybe not until the new year even, but I felt it coming. So I've been fretting over Young Matthew and Young Jeffrey... worried that it will be one of them. They are both showing their age now that the cold has set in. I've been hugging them and kissing them and taking advantage of every minute I have with them... I'm so worried.

And now I find out, I had the wrong ducks--and it came a lot sooner than expected too. It was Lilly all along.

But I won't stop snuggling my bo-boys anyway.

Phone just rang. Two female ducks rescued in CT. Sanctuary life sure rests on the sharpest edge of a razor. Well, I guess Mercy won't have to keep Piper company for long. Looks like some new girlfriends are about to arrive. But there's just no replacing our little Piper-Doo's darling Lilly-Putt...

Rough day...