Mr. and Mrs. Swan Build Their Dream house
...actually they subcontract...
When Gwyneth turned over the keys to the house, she gave me extensive instructions on caring for the birds. The fact that I don't believe in domesticating wild animals, clipping the wings on wild birds or in changing the nature of nature in general was irrelevant since these spectacular black swans had lived on the premises since they were cygnets and couldn't fly. I was told that they came from Australia. This was somewhat true. Their breed originated in Australia, but they came from a breeder who lived about half a mile from the farm.
Being by nature an effete intellectual academic, I purchased huge volumes on the care and identification of swans. I can't say it did me much good, but it did broaden my horizons. I no longer thought of swans as the great, majestic, nasty, disruptive, aggressive, mean-spirited bastards idolized in art in the form of the great white trumpeter swan. If you've never met a trumpeter swan in person, believe me, they are not unlike other beautiful creatures with a pure venomous creamy center.
We named our black swans Mr. and Mrs. Swan, because for God's sake what do you name a swan? They were, as legend has it, absolutely dedicated to each other and coupled for life. If they moved more than three feet apart, except in the case of dire emergency, one would swim to be close to the other.
When feeding swans (I had to learn it, now you're going to learn it), you must put their food next to the water in which they are paddling. They take down a mouthful of dry food and a big gulp of water, tossing back their head until the neck forms a straight line and the whole combination slides down their gullet.
They also speak. They speak a lot. They usually speak to each other, but on the rare occasion one is late in filling the food trough, they speak to people. They aren't particularly affectionate (except with each other) and they don't follow you around like the ducks do (but that's another story). They are gentle and refined and unspeakably elegant. Each remains completely focused on the other.
Mr. and Mrs. Swan were a breeding pair, and about every six months Mrs. Swan would begin the preparations for the upcoming event. We had been warned by Gwyneth that if the swans began to nest on the bank the eggs would be at risk from predatory rodents and coyotes and perhaps anyone who had missed their happy meal on the way to the office.
Therefore, it became our duty to provide them with a satisfactory nesting place floating on the lake where they might have to contend with the passing muskrat (all muskrats should die), but where they would be secure from the Grimm's fairy tale type monsters.
That didn't seem like too much to ask, as they asked very little from us and provided us with such exquisite beauty.
And so we built the swan house. I'm tempted to call it "Chez Swan", but really it was a big dog house floating on a raft with entry steps leading down into the water. The house was weighted down on both sides so that it wouldn't fall off the raft. I must admit we were quite amazed that they took to it immediately and were especially fond of the stairway. The Peking and Mallard ducks would lie on the raft catching some rays, but they had the courtesy to stay out of the house.
They were in and out of the house and lived quite comfortably. Every now and then we would row out and leave their food on the dock, saving them the paddle to shore and the inevitable contest with the deranged catfish living on the bottom of the pond (that's another story too).
Then, one day Mrs. Swan awoke with that tingling feeling and decided it was time to nest. What we were about to witness makes the planning and design execution of the Architectural Digest Upper East Side Condos look like the mopping out of a cell at Ossining Penitentiary.
Once the procedure began, the duties became clearly divided: Mr. Swan was in charge of procurement; Mrs. Swan was in charge of interior decoration. Mrs. Swan issued the directives and Mr. Swan did his very best to meet her requirements. Mr. Swan did not always succeed.
We'd sit by the lake late in the evening and watch as she'd send him down to the depths to locate a specific twig of exacting dimensions. Mr. Swan would make his dive and his rounded, black and white bottom would disappear below the water line. He would return with a stick in his bill and in the most supplicating manner place it before her. She would stand, looking at it for a moment, then look at him, then take the stick up in her mouth and shaking her head, toss it back into the water. Then she'd look at him as if to say, "Did I say I wanted a long skinny twig? No, I didn't. I said I wanted a short fat stick. Now get back down there and get one that's going to fit in through the front door!" He would look a bit morose, paddle around in a circle and take another dive, thinking the entire time, "It's just the hormones, it's just the hormones," as his webbed feet drove him back to the murky depths.
Sometimes he was completely successful, and she would grasp the offering and run into the house with it, only to return, tapping her foot, giving him that "and where's the next one?" look. Other times he would reach some "acceptable-but-not-perfect" standard. She would study the item trying to decide whether it would work in some area not yet planned. These she would put aside...
Mrs. Swan evaluates the property for curb appeal
His patience and adoration for her were absolutely inexhaustible. This was the only time I saw them together where he curtsied to her bow. When she wasn't with egg she was completely compliant.
At some unknown time the project was declared by Mrs. Swan to be completed and she settled in to lay her egg. She would stay in the house and do whatever one does when sitting on an egg, leaving the house only to take a small amount of food. Mr. Swan patrolled the perimeter of the floating house, standing guard against invading dragonflies and milkweed seeds and the marauders of the night. The mallards (better known to us as "the gang of six") and the Peking ducks and one solitary Mandarin duck added their blazing colors to the perimeter of protectors around Mrs. Swan.
We waited with great excitement for the arrival of the cygnet. It never came. One day Mrs. Swan appeared and rolled the egg onto the front platform of the dock. It hadn't yielded a living creature. She unceremoniously drop-kicked it into the lake and went back into the house to start Spring cleaning.
Everything returned to as it had been before. There was no grieving. There was no confusion or sense of loss, except of course for us. They sang to each other and pampered each other and lived for each other.
We grieved for the equivalent of a spoiled chicken egg. We resented the deprivation of seeing infant Swan's first waddles. We had picked out a name for him: Baby Swan.
Soon the Canada geese would arrive and cover the world with crap. Thanks a lot mother nature.
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