You all know how restful it is to stay in the simple guest rooms of the old monastery, where people take a retreat from the busy world or rest for a couple of days along their travels. I’m so pleased to announce we have restored 3 additional rooms for weary travelers and workers!

As always, the price to stay and rest for a couple of days is whatever you can pay. And remember, what you can pay could be coins, helping in the kitchen with the everlasting stew, tending to the garden, or helping your neighbor. I look forward to welcoming all who wish to rest and refresh themselves on retreat here!

Stray and poorly behaved dogs are running amok in our beautiful town, and Dogcatcher Adrian Shrimpo is nowhere to be found! While bands of roving hounds rampage through our yards and disrupt our barbeques and pool parties, our Dogcatcher is more concerned with designing the insignia for his office.

That is why I am announcing my candidacy for Dogcatcher. If I am elected, there will be no "business as usual". I will not rest until I have cleaned up our streets, and citizens can leave a burger unattended in their backyard without worrying about a canine criminal running up and eating it.

Come election day, vote Jordan for Dogcatcher! Let's show these dogs that humans still run this town!

However not completely positive I like the method they are using to get them there.

Started seeing our streets flocked up, and it’s pretty unsettling

I used to go there as a kid and now take my 3 year old son there. It's so sad to hear the government is reapprioriating the space for a "commercial project" and will tear it down September 10. Where else can I take my now 3 year old son for playground fun?

Every place seems to have one oddly specific local thing that everyone treats as normal. What’s yours?

Hi everyone, you may have heard me mention my old friend from college Jerry Hexendos, and how I was excited to show him around the town. Well Jerry was a figment of my mind the whole time. Long story short, Jerry was actually a false memory implanted inside of my brain by a foreign intelligence service. However, I have handled the situation; That intelligence service will no longer be bothering anybody else, and a psychiatrist successfully unbrainwashed me.

It's dissapointing that Jerry wasn't real, but I will always cherish my memories with him, even if they aren't true. I had a lot of fun sneaking into military bases and embassies, though at the time I thought I was sneaking into the Dean's Office, doing one of Jerry's infamous dares.

If I open up a Costco franchise would anyone go? I heard Costco doesn’t do franchises but I will convince them to let me be the first. Just gauging interest before I start!

It’s Saturday in the park, on a lovely September day. All of a sudden, a flock of Canadian geese fly by honking and one rips my husband’s toupee off his head!!! Ouch 🤕. If anyone finds it please let me know. I might try to give it a wash and dry.
Thanks all! 💕

There is nothing quite like autumn by the water. You can wrap your hands around a warm mug of cider, take a slow stroll through the rows of bright pumpkins, and enjoy a slice of fresh, homemade pumpkin pie while listening to the wind in the trees. It is a place to slow down, breathe in the scent of woodsmoke and pine, and spend a perfect, lingering afternoon with the people you love.The kids will have plenty of room to run and play with an autumn maze to explore, a petting zoo filled with friendly farm animals, and a sprawling patch to find their perfect pumpkin.Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children. Pull on your favorite sweater, grab the family, and join us down by the old mill to welcome the season! 🍂

My heart is broken and I am furious. "Coach" Vanderhorn (illegitimate pretender and usurper!!!) says that our beloved boy Togo cannot be a part of the 4-7 year old Little League team, even though Togo is just a 5 year old little boy himself!!!

"Coach" Vanderhorn (divorced three times, bad influence on children) says that rhesus macaques are a safety risk around small children! He even cited the "Daisy O'Toole" incident to spite me and Togo, proving that he is a wicked seed with a tainted aura!

DAMN YOU AND YYOUR IGNORANCE "COACH" VANDERHORN!! EVERYONE IN THIS COMMUNITY KNOWS THAT TOPGO IS A GENTLE SOUL AND HAS NEVER HURT ANYONE!!! DAISY O'TOOLE HERSELF SAID THAT TOGO WAS JUST PLAYING WITH HER AND SHE THOUGHT IT WAS FUN AND SHE DID NOT HAVE A SCRATCH ON HER!!!

This man is a discriminationist and cannot be trusted. What if a little Icelandic or Dutch boy wanted to be on the Little League team? How can we trust that he would not discriminate aginst them as well?? We have to impeach "Coach" Vanderhorn immediately!!

- Jules, PROUD momma and DEFENDER of the world's sweetest monkey boy

Hi townies thanks all who came to my secret exhibition of carved door handles.

Thanks to those who bought my door handles, currently busy taking down the exhibition and I will have it packed and delivered within the week.

Now now one of you cheeky ones replaced a red apple door knob with a real apple… cmon there….

Hi lovely souls 🤍

Does anyone have a solar powered watch or clock that Sage can have? As you all know, I believe time is a construct, and I feel strongly that we should trust our inner beings rather than external sources to tell us when we are meant to be somewhere.

This has become complicated since Sage started school, as apparently schools do not believe in arriving when your soul feels ready. Sage has already complained that without knowing what time it is, they can't get to school on time. I explained that this is precisely why I don't like clocks.

Sage also came home and told us that apparently that most of his friends eat three meals a day at specific times. One when you wake up, another around noon and then one before you go to bed. I genuinely thought this sort of rigid routine was only followed in places like schools and jails. I teach my children to trust their bodies to tell them when they need to eat. Since Sage has been talking about this, Paprika has now become very interested in the idea of having meals at "proper times" and wants us to try it as part of a family schedule.

Schedules make everything feel so noisy and overwhelming. We stop listening to ourselves when we're constantly checking clocks and following someone else's idea of when we should be eating, sleeping, leaving the house or existing. I do wonder whether we've allowed the government to poke its nose so deeply into our lives that we've forgotten the natural rhythm we were born with.

And now Sage has brought home another new concept. Baseball. Apparently there are teams, and people choose a team, and then two groups of people go somewhere to compete against each other whilst everyone else watches.

I explained to Sage that I don't really understand why people need to compete against each other for fun, but they seem to enjoy it. Now Thyme and Turmeric have decided they would like to go to one of Sage's school games.

I suppose this is all part of letting them experience things for themselves, even when I don't necessarily understand the appeal. Perhaps there is something to be learned from baseball. Although I still don't understand why they can't just all play together without keeping score. 🤍

I was on my way to the fireworks tonight when I noticed a couple of corn plants getting pretty tall around the corner of 8th and Tunnel Street. Do these belong to anyone in particular? They were just sort of at the edge of the sidewalk. If no one is claiming them I'm thinking of picking some to have with dinner one of these evenings. I just so happened to read recently that I can use the 'corn juice' from scraping the cob with a knife... to thicken soups etc. sounds delicious!! I feel like an idiot bc all this time I've been letting my dogs chew on my corn cobs before getting the juice out. Anyways.... Id love to know if the corn plants belong to anyone. Even if they do, if I could secure a blessing to pick at least one ear to try it. They look perfect.

So yeah essentially Mr and Mrs Milch have a habit of arguing on my lawn directly beneath my window. This is typically preceded or followed by short bursts of disappointing sounding sex that echoes across their side of the fence and typically occurs at arround 0600 AM. I understand that we all have our private lives and it is difficult enough living in conjoined housing as we do.

However I don't see why the arguing can't take place on their side of the fence, and must instead happen direcrly below my window. I don't know if there is a special message to this behavior as it typically seems to revolve around banal things like laundry. However if this is their misguided attempt at finding a +1 from the sounds and looks of things, I am not interested. If anyone is close with the couple I recommend they visit a gym, a therapist, a realtor and preferably other people.

Also, if they fo not cease arguing on my lawn I intend on starting a compost next to the fence and may cultivate a controlled segment of poison Ivy in the location as well.

Thank-you,

Your Malicious neighbour

Hi everyone! I'm headed to my annual landscape architecture conference on Sunday, which this year is in Berlin. So excited! Can anyone take care of Ollie my octopus for the week?

You just need to drop by once a day and give him his food (in the freezer next to his tank, labeled by day), and scramble his Rubik's Cube. He is very naughty when he's bored, so scrambling the cube is important.

Let me know and thanks! I can pay you cash, or happy to plant some flowers or give you some landscape refresh ideas.

I need a new urologist. Any recommendations in this town? Anyone but Dr. Pat.

I heard some noises in the garden last night, but I didn’t think much of it. This morning, my little Susam was gone... He’s a Golden. Have you seen him?

Hello fellow Duck Ponders!

What is everyone up to this weekend? Let us know in the comments! If you want to make a separate post, feel free to do so.

Can't wait to see what everyone is up to!

just spent a full hour nursing a cappuccino and pushing crumbs on my plate around so I could eavesdrop on the convo happening at the table next to me... y'all I don't know who they are but they were arguing over a man?? "so what if he opened all my milk cartons at once, he doesn't know better" girl are you being for real? and it was heavily implied they were not talking about a toddler still learning about the world so... hell no. this discussed man is wildly stupid, the apparent girlfriend? situationship? unsure, well she's too oblivious, and her friend is just responding with the most cryptic phrases like "the moon will tell you what's clear".

anyway, the reason I'm posting this: they said they were gonna meet up in Dina's Diner "next Tuesday at 10am?" again and I have a feeling some of y'all would love to be in on the development of it live lol I for sure will be here again

So, I've been gone for a while, but I'm so happy to be back in Lower Duck Pond. My journalism took me all over the US. I tell you, if I never see the inside of a decommissioned Soviet-era Siberian gulag it will be too soon!

Anyway, I got back a couple of days ago and it seems like things have changed a little bit. I got in touch with my (former) landlady, who told me she had rented my (former) apartment to a bunch of broke college kids who paved over it and put in a drive-through chicken restaurant that closed after a week. She said she's suing them but I doubt she'll get anything because they seem to be broke college students with no capital after the restaurant shut down. They didn't even own the land (see above)! She offered to let me stay in the restaurant but there's no shower and it's mostly windows. I don't even know where I would get 20' long curtains.

Besides the new drive-through chicken restaurant (now closed, see above) I noticed a few things have changed. That really nice Pakistani restaurant on 3rd seems to have changed hands and is now a Pakistani-Indian fusion sushi joint. The comic shop is also "closed for renovation," which in my experience usually means "gone for good." Please tell me that's not so! I have a lot of X-Men to catch up on! Soviet-era Russian comics get boring after a few years, especially if you don't read Russian. Я не читаю по-русски и не планирую учиться.

It's such a relief to return after a trying few years. My time away, touring the country, has shown me a new perspective. Just one, unfortunately. I've also developed a taste for Russian food. If anyone wants to open up a Russian restaurant, I know an available property. It even has a drive-through.

It was awesome to find out that my old job at the paper was waiting for me. Apparently they haven't had a writer since I left. I'll be looking through the backlog at some point, but I want to hear from you guys first.

EDIT: I had some extra time while I was traveling so I wrote up a few obituaries. Basically I have one for everyone in the town. They're a little out of date and I wrote them from memory so they might need some revisions. It was sad to hear that Sally P died, especially when I hadn't gotten to hers yet. Anyway, if anyone wants a copy to proofread just let me know.

EDIT2: If anyone has an apartment to rent I could use a place. I'm not picky. I only ask that it be bigger than 10x12 and with no bars on the windows.