Garden antics

Anyone lurking around the back of my house will notice that I have mown the lawn today. They will also notice that it remains uncut for about three feet around the base of the plum tree outside the back door. If you read anywhere, or hear it on CNN, that the Old Scrote is losing his marbles, don't you believe it.
There is a reason for the uncut sward, namely that Mrs Duck has made her nest at the base of the plum tree. Although she has clearly chosen this site to be near me, I fear that a Honda lawnmower shaving the tips off her retrices may cause her to give up the whole procreation business and go back to flirting with the male Mallards that now circle my garden in that testosterone-charged way they have.
Given that my three boisterous Kiwi grandsons were with me for the last ten days, you might wonder why I am so ready to help bring a cohort of noisy ducklings into the world, or, more accurately, into my garden. Well, mes potes, I guess I'm a sucker for anything cute and fluffy.
Envoi: my only reservation is the paternity of the ducklings. Even though her regular male companion has not left her side, I have observed him standing to one side, as it were, while another male has given his wife a good treading. All the same, if and when they are born, I know I will love the little bastards.