Category: Thoughts & More

A hodgepodge of different topics, “Thoughts & More” is where you will find posts about animation and baking to pop music and wild life.
i.e. Everything.
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Irvine French Baking Class #2: Apple Pie & Tarte Tatin

After attending the fun lemon tart class I attended last year, I signed up for the “Apple Pie and Tatin Tart” class when it opened a few months back. Despite registering early for the Irvine baking class, I almost decided to withdraw the night before. After months of hectic schedule, I didn’t think I could show up on a Wednesday night to bake from 7PM to 9:30 PM. Just the thought of it exhausted me.

However, I simply could not miss out on another opportunity to learn French baking from a French instructor. And I’m so glad that I didn’t! 😉

Snapshot of the baking classes offered by the city of Irvine.
The OC French baking class hosted by the city of Irvine is really popular so spaces fill up quickly.
Early registration is recommended!

Before the Baking

Just like last time, the class was taught by instructor Sylvie Roux at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. The center has a studio with an oven and kitchen, and participants simply have to show up on the designated day and time wearing closed-toe shoes and a $10 ingredients and tolls fee.

The studio where the class was held. The kitchen with a fridge (shown above) & oven (not shown) and all the ingredients prepared on the front table.

*The ingredients fee is separate from the class fee, which was $47 (around $50 with convenience fee). We were told to pay the ingredients fee in cash, in check or via Venmo only (no credit card).

We were also told via email that we could bring small or medium containers to bring home our pastries. (From my experience, it’s best to bring a large/wide container that can hold pie-shaped pastries. Both the lemon tart and apple pie + tatin tart were baked in round shapes.)

Apple Pie

Baking supplies & recipes placed in front of each seat around the main table.

Led by our instructor and her assistant, us twelve participants sat around a large table and worked in groups of 3~5 to create both the apple pie and tarte tatin. We started off with the pie and tart dough, mixing the ingredients together in a food processor. Since we worked in groups, sometimes watching was all you could do while others did the work. But I think watching others bake helps you learn as well.

After creating the batter, we each got a small batch to place inside our given pie molds. While we preheated the pie dough in the oven, we moved on to the highlight of the apple pie/tatin tart: 🍎

Apples Galore

Photo by Shelley Pauls.

Each of us were given a single Gala apple to peel with an apple peeling machine. It was my first time using an apple peeler/corer/slicer, and I must say it does wonders!

Since there was only one apple peeling machine, us participants each took turn peeling our Gala apples. Then, we further cut the beautifully peeled apples into smaller bits and pieces to place on top of the preheated dough.

Beautifully peeled Gala apple cut and placed on top of preheated dough.

As for the finishing touch, we sprinkled whipping cream + egg + sugar preparation on top before completely baking our pies in the oven.

Waiting for the apple pie to bake…
Apple pie ready to go! 🍎🥧

Tarte Tatin

As inexperienced as I am in French baking, I thought that “apple tatin tart” and “apple pie” were similar, i.e. interchangeable. So I thought we were making apple tart for this class. But I learned that tarte tatin is completely different and we were making BOTH the apple pie and apple tatin tart.

First of all, tatin tart has caramel in it. Our instructor taught us how to make caramels, and to our surprise, caramels are nothing but heated sugar!

Secondly, to make a tarte tatin, you pour the caramel on the bottom of the mold, put in the sliced apples, cover it with the dough, and then flip over the tart once baked. With apple pies, you put the dough then the apples, but with tarte tatin, you put the caramel and the apples then the dough.

Pouring the caramel first inside the mold.
Then placing the sliced apples on top and covering everything with the dough.

Tarte tatin being baked.

The final step: flipping over the baked apple tarte tatin! Our instructor advised us to be extra careful in this step as the caramel was very hot. 🔥

Takeaways

My second French baking class taught by instructor Sylvie Roux was as informative and fun as my first one. She handed us her recipes for both the French apple pie and apple tatin tarte, which are authentic French recipes from her family with her own tips. And after class, we each left with one small apple pie and one small apple tatin tart.

Apple pie (left) and apple tarte tatin (right). Both tasted really good!

The OC French baking classes offered by the city of Irvine are great ways to explore French pastries as well as opportunities to work in a collaborative environment with fellow beginner bakers. They’re wonderful in that you get to learn French baking from a French instructor without overly expensive fees/tuition or the need to travel to France.

If you dream of baking but don’t know where to start, I recommend OC French cooking classes!

🍎Link to OC French Baking Class Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/frenchcookingoc/

🍎Link to Irvine classes taught by instructor Sylvie Roux: https://secure.yourirvine.org/CA/city-of-irvine/catalog

🍋To read about the lemon tart class I took last year, click HERE.

P.S. I tried to recreate the French apple pie by myself over the weekend, and it turned out pretty successful!

As even I, a complete beginner, can now bake French apple pie and lemon tart by myself, the classes are totally effective! 👍

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Irvine French Baking Class #1: Lemon Tart

On a crisp October morning, I went to attend a French baking class in Irvine that I had signed up for a few weeks back. To tell the truth, my very first dream was becoming a patisserie. Of course, back when I was little, I had no idea that such a word existed. So I told everyone – my family, relatives, and friends – that I wanted to own a bakery to decorate cakes. I thought it was the same thing as a “patisserie.” But I didn’t become a “bakery owner,” and my dreams shifted around multiple times.

But today, I finally got to revisit my very first dream and bake a lemon tart at the Irvine French baking class! 🍋🥧

Photo by an_vision.

Making a Lemon Tart – The Beginning

The materials all being provided for (with a fee of $10), my fellow classmates and I simply had to follow instructions given by our French instructor, Sylvie Roux. She was efficient and friendly, giving us professional tips and knowledge on the details of making a good lemon tart.

Materials provided.

Everyone received a ceramic pie holder/mold to create their lemon tarts on, and each holder was named with a French word. Mine was “Montmartre,” the famous hill in Paris. Others got “Paris,” “France,” “Merci,” “Bisou,” and other beautiful French words.

Lemon Zest

So the first thing we had to do was create lemon zest. The 11-12 of us got into groups of two to create the lemon zest under the guidance of 3 French instructors. Some people were given zesters and others graters.

I was the only person to receive a knife to cut the lemon peels as supplies were low. If I had been better acquainted with knives, I wouldn’t have had a problem. But as I was only a baker by heart, not by hands or actual skills, I cut myself. (It was so embarrassing!) The cut wasn’t deep so I tried to hide it away, but my caring class mates and teachers got me a band aid.

It had only been 10 minutes into the cooking class and I already hurt myself! 😖

Lemons used for creating the lemon zest and juice! 🍋 🍋 🍋

I thought that I was the only person to cut the lemon with a knife (and cut oneself with it), but others were also given knives later on to cut the lemons. Luckily, no other baker was injured, and we successfully made 200g of lemon juice and piles of lemon zest.

Zests ready to go.

The Sugar Dough

After producing the lemon juice and zests, our next step was to create the sugar dough. In large groups of about 5 to 6 people, we took turns mixing butter, powder sugar, lemon zest, almond powder, egg, yolk, vanilla extract, and flour.

Mixing the ingredients altogether.

After about 40 minutes, we got a gritty dough to work with.

My little batch of dough.

Each of us had our little batch of gritty dough (sugar + butter). As instructed, we covered them up with plastic wrap, left them in the fridge for 30 minutes to get:

Voila!

The Lemon Cream

The lemon cream was created before the sugar dough. Our French instructors were very efficient with time, so we worked on the lemon cream while waiting for the sugar doughs in the fridge. Similar to how we produced the dough, groups of 5-6 took turns heating the lemon juice and mixed it with sugar, zest, 6 eggs, agar agar, and cold butter.

Mixing ’em up.

It’s Baking Time

After creating the lemon cream, we took out our doughs, rolled them on the sheets and put them in our molds.

While our doughs baked in the oven at 370°F for 15 minutes, our French instructor introduced us to making meringues. It was surprisingly easy: you mix egg whites and sugar together at high speed:

The Finishing Touch

Once the doughs were taken out (and cut out of the molds by our instructors), we all poured lemon cream into what had become crusts. And with the meringue our instructor created, we each took turns decorating our lemon tarts.

Mine looked as follows:

Lemon Tart & Dreams

The lemon tart was délicieuse! The sweet and sour complemented each other so well. But I think I can definitely do better next time, especially with the decoration..

The French baking class led by Slyvie Roux was such a treat – a fun experience where I got to reconnect with my younger self who wanted to create pastries and “own a bakery.”

Though I most likely won’t become a patisserie at this point, I can and will bake more pastries. And hopefully create better-looking lemon tarts. 😉

Photo by an_vision.

To learn more about the Irvine French baking class, check out these links:

P.S. I attended the Irvine French baking class again to learn how to bake apple pie and tarte tatin. Check out the post HERE.

*Update: A couple of weeks after the class, I tried to bake the lemon tart by myself at home, and it turned out great!

My lemon tart (feat. strawberries & blackberries instead of meringue)

And it was délicieuse! 😁

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Bella Grace: Epitome of a Beautiful Magazine

Last week, when it drizzled in the ever-sunny city of my residence, I stopped by at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. For the past few years, I’ve been on-and-off writing my first novel, and I wanted to research the tone and style of recently published books.

As is always the case whenever I’m in bookstores, I was tempted to make a purchase. But reminding myself that I already have piles of novels and stories to read at home, I resisted all temptation to purchase another book. (Plus, after the pandemic, the libraries will reopen.) But when passing by the magazine racks next to the cashier, I had to stop and purchase Bella Grace‘s Issue 29. It was just too aesthetic!

Bella Grace Magazine

The front and back covers of Bella Grace.

The magazine was extremely costly; compared to an interior design magazine my mother purchased recently ($12.99), Bella Grace was a $19.99. It’s the most expensive magazine I’ve ever purchased!

Older issues of Bella Grace.

But the content of the magazine is heartfelt and wholesome. It’s created and compiled by romanticists, optimists, and those who believe in the following:

“an ordinary life can be extraordinary, there is beauty in imperfection, and that magic can be found in the everyday.”

Bella Gracec

And their collection of writings and photographs truly reflect such beliefs and attitude toward life.

Some pages from the 29th issue of Bella Grace.

Submissions

And Bella Grace is looking for submissions! They’re looking for narratives, photography, lists, and Instagram collections from writers and photographers who share their beliefs.

“At Bella Grace, [they] believe that:

  • Every cloud has a silver lining.
  • An ordinary life can be an extraordinary life.
  • There is beauty and magic to be found everywhere.
  • It’s OK to embrace imperfection.
  • Life should be lived with a full heart and open eyes.”

As I share these beliefs, I submitted photographs and a poem to the editor a few days ago. I’m really happy to have found a magazine that shares some of my beliefs as well as aesthetics! ✨

If you are a writer or photographer, especially a romantic or an optimistic one, I highly encourage you to read Bella Grace. And even take part in their movement to share life’s beauties!

P.S. To visit Bella Grace’s official website, click HERE.

P.P.S. For submission guidelines, check out this link: https://bellagracemagazine.com/submission-guidelines/

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Raccoon in the Hood 🦝

Surprised raccoon staring down from pine tree.

The town I live in abounds with animals of all kinds. We have squirrels, rabbits, lizards, rats, doves, ducks, crows, parrots, coyotes, and even mountain lions roaming about. But I had no idea that I would come face to face with a raccoon!

Encountering My Neighbor, Raccoon

One evening, after a walk in the park, I was coming back home with my mother. We were chatting about something I don’t recall when we heard a loud “thump” near a pine tree that grows right in front of our house. For a moment we both thought it was one of the squirrels. But the thump was too loud for an animal that small.

Then, we saw a black shadow scampering back up from where it fell. And to our utter surprise, we saw a raccoon staring down at us!

It was bizarre to see a raccoon for the first time in my life. It looked exactly like it does in movies and cartoons, with its bandit-like fur around its eyes and fluffy black-and-white tail.

We were astounded to see the creature in front of our house and stood in shock for a few seconds. Then we pulled out our phones to capture the cute yet frightening wild animal.

While taking pictures of the raccoon, we noticed that it was as surprised as we were. It was still on the tree branch, looking down at us with, I conjecture, even more amazement and fear. Here is a comic strip I made recounting my encounter with the raccoon:

As we did not know what our wild neighbor might be capable of, we carefully headed inside, staying as far away from him. And as we slithered away, the raccoon also slowly crawled down from the tree and disappeared into the night.

Photo of the actual raccoon we saw that night!

It was an interesting night to say the least! I feel lucky to have met my neighbor raccoon that I did not know existed until that night.

Who are some of your wild neighbors?

P.S. Here are some resources about what to do when you encounter raccoons:

The Humane Society of the United States

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

LA Animal Services

City of Sacramento

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EPIK Essay: Thoughts on Teaching & Encountering Cultural Differences

Empty classroom with the world map showing.
Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton.

While applying to EPIK this year, I had to write personal statements on teaching as well as encountering cultural differences. Below are my teaching philosophy and thoughts on cultural differences (2 of the 3 EPIK essay prompts).

*But as EPIK essay prompts may change, be sure to always check their official website!

Prompt #1: My Teaching Philosophy (on TEFL)

*TEFL is “Teaching English as a Foreign Language.”

Students in rural north Thailand. Photo by Mario Heller.
Duties of the Student

Learning cannot be accomplished without the effort of the teacher as well as the students themselves. While teachers provide the necessary tools, tips, and methods of studying, this must be met with the efforts of the students to bring about results. The key to mastering a new language is repetition and memorization. So, students should memorize terms learned in class until they become so accustomed to the words that they can remember them in situations that require them. While students can practice memorizing by themselves, they can’t with conversations. Therefore, teachers should focus on conversations in the classroom, having the students practice amongst themselves and also providing materials with which they can practice listening.

Duties of the Teacher

It is the teacher’s duty to create a learning environment where students feel safe to make mistakes. The most important thing when learning a new language is to not feel bad about making mistakes. So, it is crucial for the teacher to make the class a friendly learning environment. It should not, cannot be a place of immediate mastery and perfection. Such pressure discourages students from answering questions; they become shy, unwilling to share with the class. This should be prevented, as participation plays a big part in students’ absorption and application of new materials. Students should be comfortable about making mistakes as well as asking questions when they do not understand a lesson.

Not Just a Subject

Most importantly, since English is a language, an everyday method used to communicate, EFL teachers should remind the students that while it is a subject to study, English is also something approachable in our daily lives. Showing the students that studying English doesn’t always require studying, that it can be fun in the forms of watching movies and shows in English, listening to pop songs, or even playing games using English will help the students have less burden, less repulse of studying another language and actually enjoy learning to speak the invaluable, universal language.

Prompt #2: On Encountering Cultural Differences

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger.

Encountering cultural differences in today’s world is inevitable as well as ubiquitous, as the world has become closely connected through the technological advancements of the past centuries. And more often than not, encountering something that is different from what one is accustomed to is unpleasant or weird. But cultural differences can be understood and respected if the cultures involved communicate and share the history and reasons behind their practices. (And if the cultures learn how and why their traditions can be viewed in different ways than they perceive them.) If cultures communicate and understand one another, then cultural differences won’t divide different peoples or lead to hatred and stereotypes.

This is why I want to teach English to South Korean students. So that they, too, can learn the language of the world to communicate with the rest of the world. That when they encounter different cultures, they may understand others as well as be understood. That they may become cosmopolitan individuals that share, work, and live with others around the world. 

Advice to EPIK Applicants

Like how I did, you will need to answer the following EPIK essay prompts:

  1. Answer both why you want to teach EFL AND why you want to teach in Korea.
  2. Explain your teaching philosophy briefly. How will you connect your background skills and experiences to teaching English in your classroom? How do you plan to further develop your teaching skills?
  3. Share your thoughts on encountering cultural differences. How do you plan to adapt to Korean school life and culture?
Photo by Markus Krisetya.

I hope my essay/personal statements give you some ideas and thoughts to write about. But I highly discourage plagiarizing or using my thoughts word-for-word since…

#1: The EPIK team already read my essays and know the contents.

#2: Plagiarism is against the law.

Good luck applying to EPIK!

P.S. To read about my EPIK experience, check out my post HERE.

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My Latest KFC Review: Still Terrible

Reflection of the KFC restaurant in a pool.

KFC was one of my favorite fast-food restaurants out there. With its menu of coleslaw, mashed potatoes & gravy, fried chicken, as well as biscuits with jam and butter, KFC had a solid menu of gustatory harmony.

KFCfooditems
Photo by Aleks Dorohovich.

But about a decade ago, things changed. My family and I were given undercooked fried chicken – so undercooked that we had to ask them to fry it again. Even after the request, the chicken bits were oozing pink blood, so my mom had to cook them at home herself before we had any. After witnessing such poor quality, we stopped going to KFC for a while.

After years of staying away and eating Chick-Fil-A instead, our nostalgia for KFC kicked in as we remembered how good the combinations of coleslaw, chicken, and biscuits were.

And so, after about a decade, we made our way back to the same KFC store that served us bloody chicken pieces to order an 8-Piece Fill Up which contains eight crispy chicken, two plastic bowls of mashed potato and gravy, one plastic bowl of coleslaw and four biscuits. With packets of jam on the side like ketchup.

My Latest KFC Review

And I have to say… KFC once again disappointed us!

The “crispy” chicken just had a thin coat of fried batter-like substance which peeled off when bit into. And the biscuits had become smaller and more stale than ever before.

My family and I did finish our lunch (unsatisfactorily) with much of the coleslaw and mashed potato and gravy left over. The two menu items tasted relatively the same as they did about twenty years ago, so they weren’t horrible. But as our tastes have improved over the past decades, the menus were simply “not so bad as to be inedible,” i.e. just tolerable for consumption.

Photo by Kina.

How can a fast-food restaurant with arguably a menu better than Chick-Fil-A be so terrible?

I just couldn’t understand it; neither could my family. And after browsing online, I found that many people shared our sentiment towards the fast food restaurant: pure disappointment.

I couldn’t find a reliable source clearly explaining the reasons behind the downfall of KFC’s quality over the past years, but from the bits of information I could gather, it appears that Colonel Sanders, the founder of the restaurant chain, sold it to someone else. Hence the changes for the worse. Whatever may be the reason, hopefully KFC manages to improve. Because if it doesn’t anytime soon, I could see it shut down for good.

Photo by Maxime Lebrun.

I know for a fact that KFC fares better with the public in Asia such as in South Korea and Japan.

Perhaps it’s the problem with local management rather than the menu or the company. Hopefully the KFC opening soon nearby my place is better than the one I had for today’s lunch. Hopefully I’ll write a positive KFC review next time.

It’ll be the last chance my family and I give to our once-beloved Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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Ducklings Attacked: A World of Survival

A lonely duck swimming by itself in a foggy lake.

This evening when the sun started to set, my mother and I came upon a mother duck and her two ducklings. Where I live, it’s common to find ducks, ducklings, rabbits, squirrels, and lizards. Anyways, I have an affinity to ducklings after rescuing them a couple of years back with my family (check out the post HERE) so I pay close attention whenever I encounter them. And watching them, I found it odd to see that there were only two ducklings trailing behind their mother.

I also spotted a great white bird resembling a heron lurking nearby.

A heron-like bird flying above water.
Something like this bird, but the legs were leaner and the beak yellowish. And it had a much slender, meaner face. Photo by Bob Brewer.

Perhaps it was a heron. But I can’t tell as I am no expert on birds). And from the look of it and from my past memory of witnessing a cruel Canadian goose murder a duckling in another pond, I had this premonition of imminent danger for the little ducklings.

Ducklings Attacked

My fears were realized when the heron-like bird closed in on the two ducklings bobbing around. The mother duck fluttered its wings in protest or perhaps to make itself look bigger to scare off the predator. The details of their interaction I could not understand; but I could tell clearly who were the prey and who was the predator.

Now, one might say it isn’t right to interfere with the world of nature, as animals eating and getting eaten is the way of nature.

But from my understanding, human interference is also part of nature, as humans are part of the ecosystem as well.

And it just didn’t seem right to do nothing while the mother duck and her ducklings got attacked by the mean-looking heron that was inching closer and closer.

So I yelled at the thing and chased after it when it got too close to the scared ducklings. But the heron wouldn’t fly away from the pond: no matter how much I ran and yelled at it, it would dart away or fly a little bit only to come back to the pond. It wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t giving up on what it set its eyes on.

I did all I could to condemn the heron, running at it to scare it off.

But the sun sank lower and lower behind the horizon and I had to go. I had to leave the mother duck and her two ducklings hovering in a corner of the pond with the heron still in their vicinity. What became of them, I don’t know. But I have a terrible feeling that the heron got its way.

World of Survival

As I sit here writing, I cannot help but think how ruthless the world is.

In this world, there is no mercy for the little ducklings or any other preys that are at the wrong place at the wrong time. No matter how little or young they are. There is no mercy for little baby animals who meet weak parents or incompetent, foolish parents who lead them to dangerous places (e.g. drainage ditches, areas of lakes where there are hostile, cruel geese & etc.). Same goes for people. If one fails to develop necessary skills for survival and/or success, it’s a tough, tough world out there. (And instead of predators like herons, we have conmen, cheaters, criminals, immoral beings and many more that make life much more difficult than it already is). Plus, there is no mercy for actions as well as inactions: there are consequences no matter what. Our world, like the world of animals, is a world of predators and prey.

It is a world of survival.

lonely mother duck
Photo by Kendal.

Update #1: I’ve revisited the pond a few days later. To my grief, I only found a single duck like the image shown above. (The duck shown above is NOT the duck I saw). I have no way to tell, but by the look and timing of it, the lonely duck that I saw about two days after the said event seemed like the mother duck. It was floating in the exact pond where the horrible event probably took place. The female duck was motionless. A couple of days later, I saw it start to move a little. Now, it is no longer at the pond. It was heartbreaking.

Update #2: Today on October 7th, I spotted the heron-like creature again! It may be the same heron that attacked the ducklings. It may not be. But the bird looks very similar to the one I saw attacking the ducklings:

Video of the heron that looks very similar to the one that attacked the ducklings.
I think it’s hunting for small fish.

P.S. Here is a 2002 journal article that explores the very topic of interfering with nature: “Why Not Interfere with Nature?” by Mark A. Michael. I wish I were in school again to read the full article!

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Ducklings Rescued: From Scared & Lost to Safe & Found

When I had left for class yesterday, my parents had texted me a photo of a mother duck and her ducklings.

“They’re in front of our house right now. There’re 10 of them!”

My parents had notified me before going out.

“If they’re still there when you get home, why don’t you give them some veggies?” My mother had texted.

This was the actual photo my mom texted me that afternoon.

Thrilled to see the family of ducks, I went straight home after class. But when I arrived, there were no signs of ducks. Disappointed, I went inside and worked on my assignments, thinking that maybe some other time I’ll get to see them.

Then I heard loud quacks.

Excited, I dashed outside with a bag of romaine. To my surprise, there was only the mother duck. She quacked and waddled in the parking lot in front of my house. When I tried to give her romaine, she came close for a moment only to waddle away instantly.

Puzzled at the absence of her 10 ducklings and at her odd behavior, I went back inside. Perhaps the ducklings were safe in their home somewhere and the mother duck was checking out the neighborhood. But the mother duck began to quack again at about 8 o’clock in the evening, which made me and my mom go outside to see what the matter was.

When we went close to the mother duck to see what was going on, she scurried away only to waddle back close again. Unable to see what the matter was, we went back inside.

It wasn’t until this morning at around 6:50 that I was able to see what was really going on.

When I woke up this morning, I heard the mother duck quacking again. Maybe this time she’ll want some food, I thought, and with the bag of romaine, I rushed outside to see the mother duck alone by the parking lot. But then again, when I threw pieces of romaine on the floor close to the mother duck, she waddled away. And came back.

However, this time, I noticed that the mother duck was lingering by an opening that leads to the storm drain.

Then, I realized that loud chirping sounds were coming from under it.

Before, I had thought that the chirping noises were coming from nearby bushes. Mixed with the chirps of other birds, I had not realized the chirps of the baby ducklings coming from the drain!!!

The storm drain that the ducklings fell into.

Now I saw that the mother duck was waddling around the parking lot because she was anxious, worried, and desperate to save her ducklings that had fallen in the drain. She had been quacking for help. When I came with a bag of romaine, she had come close then waddled away, because she did not want food – she wanted help!

Ascertaining with my mother that the high-pitched chirps were coming from down under, I called the Animal Services Unit of the police department, which luckily was open at 7 A.M.

While waiting for the Animal Services Unit, my mother and I stood with the anxious mother duck next to us. My mother said to her: “You poor thing. They’re coming to get your babies out. Wait a little bit longer.”

When my mom had gone back inside to cook breakfast, I stood alone with the mother duck. She had waddled to and fro in the parking lot and around the drain all day and night. The poor thing had been quacking to alert and ask for help since yesterday afternoon. I had been so blind!

Suddenly, the mother duck paused and stared at me, or in my direction. And after a short silence, she fluttered her wings and flew above me as I dodged. She flew far, far away and disappeared.

I had thought at that moment, “She must have went out to get more help. She’ll come back.”

But even after someone from the Animal Services Unit came and rescued the little baby ducklings (there were actually 11!) from the wet, cold storm drain, she did not come back.

Animal Services rescuing the baby ducks stuck in the catch basin.
Animal Services brings out the ducklings trapped in the drain with a long net.
Ducklings rescued with a net.

The rescuer told me that he could not wait longer for mother duck to come back: he needed to take the baby ducklings (who were rescued and huddling inside a white container) to a wildlife rescue center located in Huntington Beach, CA.

At first, I asked the man to wait a bit longer for their mother. She was here less than half an hour ago; she was sure to come back, I pleaded. But as minutes passed and there were no signs of her, I finally agreed with the rescuer that it would be best for the ducklings to go, as they were hungry, weak, and tired from the long, cold night they had to endure.

Eleven baby ducklings rescued!

The man from the Animal Services Unit left with the 11 little ducklings to Huntington Beach. The mother duck did not come back.

I don’t know what the mother duck was thinking about when she flew away. I will never know. But maybe after successfully letting someone know about her poor babies stuck in the drain, she had felt that she did all she could. Perhaps she was content knowing that her ducklings would be rescued. Maybe she was watching us humans rescue her ducklings from a distance.

I will never know.

P.S. I encountered another mother duck and her ducklings at a park. But this time, I could not rescue them… 😔

Click HERE for the full story.