It's Always Something!

 Stuck duck in center of  lake quickly frozen over after the winter storm and temperature drop.  He couldn't get any purchase on the smooth ice- flapping and clawing to no avail.   How his 7 associates made it across to stay under the dock is a mystery to me.  (I suspect that they better anticipated the lake freezing but who knows nature?)
 So a rescue was in order and three days later , and  after a warmup to 18°F,  I managed to devise a plan involving a raft, rope, and hunting knives since the ice was too thin  and creaky for me to walk on yet.

 Seven associates under the dock.  We built them a functional duckhouse and enclosure including a chicken-wire top sewn together with aluminum wire ,usually used for electric fencing, to keep out the racoons and owls from above.  (you can barely see it to the right of the chicken house -- sans chickens.)
But keeping them in the duckhouse is another problem even though that is where the food is (mostly dried corn).  They will eat then shoot right back out into the lake even though the fencing for the area extends out into the lake to capture about 6 feet of water.  They are domesticated but not at all very controllable.

This the deflated raft.  It started losing air as I was sitting in it on the ice while using two hunting knives' points to propel it forward while roped to a tree in case the ice broke and I had to pull myself back to shore.
Duck freaks when I get to it but didn't have the strength or the means to get away. Grabbed it and brought it back to shore by pulling on the rope where waiting black dog further freaks out  duck--fortunately it had not eaten in several days! (The duck not the dog)

But all is well; at least in this little corner of the story.