I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day.

If yours was, or perhaps wasn’t particularly wonderful, I hope you are still taking great pride in being a mother.

As Charles Dickens said, “Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues—faith and hope.

Speaking of faith and hope, I have been fortunate to be home this past week and to be able to observe a mother to be. From my window I can look out over my little pond and I have been able to watch a mother Mallard duck sit on her nest. It has been raining almost nonstop and to make it really unpleasant, we’ve been getting hail and serious winds with temperatures here in the Utah mountains still dropping down close to the 30’s at night.

It’s now been five days since I spotted this very well-hidden and camouflaged hen and as many days since her mate has been absent. I believe the colorful drake stays away so as not to attract attention to their nest. So, there she is all alone, through the cold and the rain, day in and day out. I have not seen her leave her nest for even a minute. I’m wondering if she will remain on the nest throughout the 28-30 days I believe it will take for her to hatch her ducklings. Tough job! But, you Moms know it’s a tough job and I’m sure a lot tougher on many days than you would wish, but you hang in there.

Here’s to you—all you moms who make my job possible, because we can’t really do anything except through you. So on behalf of all your children who perhaps can’t say it yet and those who can, but don’t really yet understand what you have done and are doing for them, I’m going to do it for them.

Thank you mom—you’re the best!!!!!!!!!

– Bob