Duck, Duck, No Duck

A couple of weeks ago (April 1st, to be exact), we met up with some friends in town. They'd been hosting us during our previous visits, so we thought we'd host . . . but where? Why, our little Håfweh Haus, of course!

It's such a neat little cabin . . . and we never use it (ourselves)! So, it was the perfect opportunity - an opportunity that we need to take advantage of more often!


My folks went up that morning to light the furnace for us and GENEROUSLY shoveled the path and the deck . . . even tho I assured them that Tom could do that when he came into town after work (I still wasn't supposed to shovel at that point post-op). Then, I took the fixings in for Soup and Dumplings and a fruit salad. I opened up a pear cider to sip and turned the radio on . . . and puttered in the tiny kitchen (area, not an actual room since the entire cabin's only 10' x 16') making dinner. By the time our friends arrived, there was a crackling fire in the woodstove, the drinks and salad were chilling in the snow on the deck, and the soup was bubbling away on the two-burner propane hotplate. Cozy, huh?

It was all quite idyllic . . . except for one small disaster.

While Tom was doing some things around the cabin and I was inside, the dogs were running around outside . . . including down around my folks' place. And, little did we know (although, yes, we had discussed it a couple of nights previous and I had promptly forgotten), the fence enclosing their two-legged critters (chickens, ducks, and geese) had gone down under the weight of the snow. Result? The livestock was NOT protected . . . from Tucker. So, fast forward to me asking Tom, "What are the dogs playing with?" "Looks like a chicken," Tom jokes. Then, a split second later it hits us both: Oh, Nooooo! And, actually, the situation might have been better had it been a chicken . . . and not a beautiful, rare, expensive duck that Dad had raised from a day-old duckling. Ugh.

Tom cleaned it right away, and we put the breast in the snow - awaiting Mom & Dad's arrival home from Duluth when I could tell them that I had both good news and bad news. "The good news is that you can fresh duck medallions for dinner! The bad news . . . ."