Pepper Puddle-Duck

Pooh to Pommy puddle-ducks!  I have my own dinky-di, cross-cultural version.  A recent prolonged deluge turned Mum's front yard into a rice paddy and Pepper was in heaven. She spent hours pecking at the sodden soil and wouldn't acknowledge me, so great was her enjoyment. 

    This incident has reminded me that Pepper Zen, a child of nature, really needs to be living in nature as in nature on a farm.  Under no circumstances will I set her free!   
     Like me, she is not coping too well with suburbia and desires a bucolic lifestyle.  She should be able to quack and honk to her heart's content, but I have to reprimand her when she attempts it.  And I reprimand myself when I scream at the kids for the neighbours don't appreciate newcomers disturbing the deathly quiet that is suburbia.  On TI, there was a good chance when I yelled at the kids, a plane or a Customs or medi-vac helicopter was passing by and drowned out my shrieking.  Or a passing vehicle blasting doof-doof-doof music (apparently this does happen in Cairns, but only south of the Barron). Oh, suburbia will be the death of both Pepper and me, the quiet, the homogeneity, the sensation of being so utterly trapped behind purpose-built fences, neat, clean, functional (on TI, our fences were pre-loved security screen doors held in place by masonry blocks and rope).
     I've been making enquiries to find Pepper a new home and having some fantasies of my own involving either a Tableland farm with a meandering, rainforest-lined creek or a caravan and a long, straight road through red dirt and the odd mulga bush.  In the event I can't pull off the former, I am seeking a fellow-duck lover who can grow up Pepper for a while rather than permanently adopt her.  And if anyone knows of a second-hand caravan for sale, 18 to 20 feet, preferably off-road ... 

Portrait of Pepper (on the farm).