Ducks on Deck

I live on a lake in Arizona during the winter. OK. It's a man-made lake. OK. It's more like a moat. Still, if it quacks like a duck..... We see lots of water birds on our lake. Herons, cranes, egrets, and ducks. Lots of ducks. My neighbors repeatedly complain that the ducks are swimming in their pools. I think some of my neighbors would secretly like to wring some duckies necks and serve duck soup for supper. One of my neighbors lamented that the ducks were purposely teasing her dog. Said dog jumped into the lake and tried its hardest to retrieve a duck. It missed but the neighbor wasn't too happy about having said dog jump into the lake because when a dog jumps into a lake, a dog gets wet and when a dog gets out of a lake, a dog shakes dirty water all over its owner and anyone and everything else standing in the vicinity. I can imagine that it isn't too easy to keep a retriever out of a lake. Instinct kicks in.

I have often listened with a sort of smug concern to my neighbors' stories about those awful ducks. I don't have a pool so I haven't had to deal with the mess swimming ducks must leave behind. And I'm pretty darn sure that my two chihuahuas will refrain from jumping into any body of water, given the reluctance they show when faced with bathes, rain, or snow. Water is for drinking. So, I was feeling pretty safe....until yesterday. I was sitting at my computer when I heard the loud sustained barking of my dogs out in our backyard. I could tell by the sound that something had triggered their "intruder alert" mechanism. They were really upset and mad. Someone had invaded what they felt was their territory. Not wanting to upset the neighbors, I ran to the door to let my dogs in and check out what all the noise was about. By now, I started hearing the loud indignant sound of quacking. Lots of quacking. What on earth? Sure enough. There were ducks on my deck, not even a foot from my door. There, on one side of what I refer to as my "doggy gate" were my dogs, hair standing errect on their backs, teeth bared, barking and snarling, and there on the other side of the "doggy gate" were four ducks....teasing and tossing insults at my dogs. Of all the nerve! That'll teach me to be so smug. It appears that I have now been added to the ranks of duck-pestered neighbors.

Anyone have a good recipe for Duck Soup? How about Peking Duck?