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Repeat Customer At Garden Store Lays Around

 May 11, 2010 ⋅  Post a comment

Folks at Boise’s D&B Supply depend on repeat customers at their garden and animal supply store on Glenwood Street.

One of their most loyal patrons is an old gal who comes in each spring and just lays around for a month at a time. She has been doing it for about 10 years and has become so well known they even feed her.

She is a wild mallard duck and has nested at the store in various planter pots, among the soil aid bags, and near a decorative pond. This year she has bedded down in a large pot at the entrance to the garden center. Her mates–a couple of greenheaded drakes–have the run of the store while the doors are open.

So quiet is the duck we call “Daffy,” she is often overlooked by shoppers intent on finding just the right flowers for their springtime displays. We are not certain Daffy is really the original mother duck. Their lifespan is 7-9 years and most go off to that Great Duck Pond in the sky after only 2 years. However like salmon, ducks tend to return to their place of birth each year.

As soon as the ducklings hatch each year, Daffy leads them across the parking lot to the nearby Boise River for their introductory swimming lessons.

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