Being the good-natured and agreeable ducky that I am, I was very happily living in my cute little apartment in the greater Cleveland area of Ohio. I generally took my naps, watched my T.V., played with my computer and amused myself without bothering the neighbors at all. I would toddle off to the grocery store with my little cart once a week, then toddle back again. Unfortunately, not everyone in my neighborhood liked to live quietly and happily the way ducky does. A person moved in next door that had very disturbing habits. He made a lot of noise very late at night while ducky was trying to sleep, and there were a lot of strangers coming to visit him. Sometimes, the strangers would stand in the parking lot late at night and yell for the neighbor or honk their car horns.

This was not very neighborly behavior, but, being a fair-minded ducky, I thought I would be polite about it. I went to see the neighbor, and asked him if he could be a little quieter at night, as the noise made it very hard for me to sleep. He said he would try to be quieter, but then he didn't. I asked the landlord if he could tell the neighbor that this was not very nice, and that the noise was disturbing me. It turns out that other neighbors had also told the landlord, so he asked the neighbor to please be quiet at night. The neighbor knocked at my door and yelled at me for telling the landlord on him. This did not bother me very much, until I spoke to my friend at the police department. My friend, who is a very nice policeman, informed me that the new neighbor was a "suspected drug dealer," which is police talk for "he is not a very nice person, and ducky probably will not want him to be her friend."

After about three months of the neighbor continuing to make lots of noise at night, the police came to the building and made a "bust," which is police talk for "they broke down his door and took him away to jail, along with the drugs and guns that they found in his apartment." The landlord, the other neighbors, and this ducky were very happy to see him go. Unfortunately, this man was not the only "suspected drug dealer" in ducky's neighborhood, and these bad people started causing a lot of trouble. People were getting robbed right on the street, and I was afraid to go to the grocery store by myself for fear of being robbed also. Some of these bad people would hang around in the parking lot at night and offer to sell drugs to people that came in and out of ducky's apartment building. This was not a good thing, and my friends were worried about me.

My friends, LoriD and Pro, were getting ready to move far away to a new house in the country, and this made me sad, because I would not be able to go to their house for tasty dinner and snacks if they lived so far away. LoriD said she would be sad, too, because she likes it when I come to their house for tasty dinner and snacks. Pro said he would also be sad, because he didn't want LoriD to be sad and lonely at the new house. We didn't want to be sad, so Pro and LoriD came up with a solution that I think was very brilliant, because they are both geniuses. They asked me if I would like to move to the country with them! The new house has a pond, they told me, so this ducky would fit right in!

So, I packed all my ducky things and ducky amusements, and put them in the truck to move out to the country. It was a very long drive to the new house, about three and a half hours, and the dog was riding in the truck with us. This would normally not be a bad thing, only the dog had decided to make friends with Mr. Skunk only a few days before leaving the Cleveland area, and many attempts to take away the skunk smell had not been so successful. So, the dog was kind of smelly the whole trip, and we had to keep the windows open. It started raining for some of the drive, and we had to close the windows part way so that we wouldn't get wet.

We had some special friends, Jim and Pat, help us move out to the country, because we needed an extra car to fit all the birds from the aviary that my pal LoriD runs. So, LoriD and her daughter, TeenGirl, rode in her car, I rode in the truck with Pro, TeenBoy and the dog, and Pat and Jim rode in their car. We also had a big trailer that said "U-Haul" on the side and we were able to put a lot of stuff in there, too. We stopped several times along the way to the new house so that we could buy delicious snacks and see the lovely and well-kept restrooms in the gas stations. Going on a long drive like this can be an adventure in itself, which I will probably tell you about another time!

By the time we got to the new house, it was starting to get dark. The new neighbor that lives up the hill from us came by to welcome us to the neighborhood with a delicious plate of cookies, many of which were eaten right away, as we were hungry from all that driving. We started unloading the various cars, trucks and trailer, and by the time we were finished doing that, it was very dark outside, so you couldn't really see anything. It was also very late, so Jim and Pat stayed overnight. The inside of the new house is very big, and LoriD and Pro even gave me my own room where I can keep all my ducky things. It has a nice, big closet, and a window that has a pretty view of the back yard and the houses up the hill, which you can actually see in the windows of if you are using Pro's binoculars, which he usually puts away now and doesn't leave them on the kitchen counter so that I can use them to look out the window with anymore.

Well, by the time we had done all that unloading and started unpacking many, many boxes, we were all very tired and went to sleep. When we woke up the next morning, Pro took everybody outside to look at the new property and play in the sunshine. The new property is really big, and there is a pond and a barn, so we went to look at the pond right away. There are actual fish in the pond, and the dog was so delighted that she dived in and went swimming! I would have jumped right in, too, only I still had my swimsuit packed in a box somewhere. While we were looking at the pond, I looked over at the neighbor's yard on the other side, and he had actual cows outside! There were at least three of them, and they were looking at us, probably because they wanted to know why we were walking around the pond. They came right up to the fence to say "Moo," which I think is Cowspeak for "Hello, new neighbors! Why are you walking around the pond?" Since none of us speak Cowspeak, we didn't really talk to the cows very much.

There is another neighbor across the highway that has horses and llamas, and you can see them from our living room window. They are not as close as the cows are, so I have not heard any of them talk in Horse Talk or Llama Language yet, but they look very friendly over there, and they eat the grass so the neighbor will not have to mow it. We have a really big pin oak tree that is over 200 years old, and is one of the oldest trees in the county. It is nice and shady in the summer, and the dog likes to play fetch with the branches that sometimes fall off. Since the house is right up on a hill, we can go sled-riding down the hill in the winter, and TeenBoy can ride his skateboard down the driveway, which is really long.

Once we had seen all these amazing wonders on the new property, we got back to the business of unpacking the many many boxes, and settling in to the country life. LoriD went grocery shopping, and brought back some Cheez-Its, which made me happy, as I was afraid they might not have my favorite tasty snack so far out in the country! We ate a nice country dinner in our nice new house out in the country, then went outside to go fishing at our nice new pond. I didn't catch any fish, but I had a lot of fun putting the worms on my hook and bobbing them in the water! After we came back from fishing, I took a nice hot shower, then settled down with a cup of coffee and a big handful of Cheez-Its, stopping to think that the country life is going to be a very good thing, indeed! I tucked myself into my little ducky bed and happily dreamed about the delightful cows and horses and llamas, who are so close by that you can smell them, but far enough away that you can close the windows and not have to smell them!

It was one busy adventure for this ducky, and now I am looking forward to having some more "living out in the country" adventures, which I will probably be having very soon!