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Adventures with Madame Qwackers - There Seems to be a disconnect

The vet called the next day after the duck’s operation. The vet’s named renamed the duck Madame Qwackers. During our conversation, she mentioned Madame Qwackers received a wire in the front of her beak and multiple sutures.   After the operation, Madame Qwackers was up, eating and drinking. These were all good signs, but the vet wanted to keep her overnight and check her the next day before releasing Madame Qwackers to me. On Friday, I called back to the vet’s office. The technician on the phone told me that Madame Qwackers was good to go. I hopped in my truck to go pick her up and take her to her new kennel. When I arrived, the technicians immediately smiled and let me know Madame Qwackers was ready to pick up. They just wanted to show me how to give her medication. While the technicians were retrieve the duck, the billing lady was unpleasantly waiting for me. With a smile she said,” How are you going to settle the remaining bill today?”   I’m a little confused at this point

Our Adventures with Madame Qwackers - Duck, it's what's for dinner.

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I grew up around animals in my summers in the Northwest as well as various farms I spent time at in the Brunswick area. I caught raccoons, shot squirrels, emasculated wild hogs, and many other things boys do growing up in the South. I remember the first time I helped prepare a chicken for dinner at The Hostel west of I-95 when one of the hens got caught in the chicken wire and broke her wing, the question wasn’t,   ”Do we try to save the chicken?” The question was,” Are we having fried chicken or baked chicken?” Let’s face it, birds like ducks and chickens are always on the Southern menu. Personally, I love duck with rice, okra and tomatoes with a slice of cornbread. In defense of my mother, she never encouraged us to hunt or catch, hunt or eat wild critters. As a boy, it was easy to hang out with friends that did. Even my grandmother introduced me to southern foods, such as raccoon via some friends of ours. Yep, this was me over twenty years ago as a young boy in the South.  

Ananthapuram, visiting the real India.

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About 80% of the population lives outside the cities.  To see India, its essential to leave the cities and head to the country side.  I went with Stanley Bhantu and Prithvi Rameswaram( Sonny) to a small village located about 200 km from Hyderabad named Ananthapuram . Two days earlier, I asked my friend Suhas why he booked a plane to Chenae instead of driving. He warned me the roads are not the way to go from city to city in India. He was right. My trip took me on some of the better roads of India, and some of the worst in the area. Our morning started early to make the 3 hr trip to Ananthapuram, and we had to deal with the regular traffic leaving Hyderabad. Hyderabad has very few stop lights and even fewer stop signs. Speed limits are easy to enforce since the constant congestion of people navigating their cars through the traffic keeps everything moving at a snail's pace.  In India, traffic lanes are more of a suggestion that the rule, and it is not uncommon to see cars stradd