Animal care director Walt Batycki and I have had our struggles. He rightly claims that I don't listen to him--instead I come armed with my solution to a problem, which may not be feasible for a whole host of reasons. I rightly claim that he gets a little too worked up about things that really aren't such a big deal if one would only approach them with equanimity.

We love each other; we regularly say so. We struggle constantly. But then there are the moments that, in an instant, wash our issues away. There's just been one.

Murphy and I were driving the farm: surveying the land, the fencing, checking in with the outside animals. As I drove past our beautiful duck pond, I spotted what looked like a duck head floating on the water. Oh no. One of our most vulnerable ducks, a Pekin female named Shirley who's routinely harassed by aggressive males, was caught in the fencing that divides the "duck safe" portion of the pond from the "no swim zone." Her leg was caught in wire well below the surface. Literally only her head was visible as she struggled; the rest of her body was completely submerged.

I gunned the accelerator, leapt from the car, pounded on Walt's door.

"WALT WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!!" I called as I entered, quickly explaining the situation to Walt, who was sound asleep, exhausted from a long week.

"Let me throw some clothes on," he answered.

I gunned the car backward to the tool shed to retrieve wire cutters, then sped to the pond, visualizing myself waist deep in 40-degree water.

When I got there, no more than 60 seconds after knocking on Walt's door, Walt was already waist-deep in the pond, Shirley in hand. An instand later, Walt was pale and shivering, and Shirley was sailing through the air into her warm, dry shelter.

"I love you, Walt," I said to the man running to his hot shower.

"I know," he said.