The first thing I do every morning is look out at my backyard. Since I don’t have my contact lenses in, I am mostly looking to see if the sun is shining. The other day I walked into the yard and was dismayed to see what I thought was a dead duck lying under the little table in the back corner. On closer inspection I realized it was a very motley stuffed animal. I don’t know how this thing got under the table. The yard is fenced on three sides, reached only by a long driveway. I looked at my backyard pictures and found that it doesn’t appear until January 20. Possibly this solves another mystery for me. One day, after a snowfall, I noticed that someone had walked down the driveway and a short distance into the yard. The footsteps made an oblong loop into and out of the yard. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would do that. Maybe they noticed the duck from the street and came to look at it. I never noticed the duck until I walked into the yard.