I love small towns

I've rhapsodized about small towns before. Today came another reminder about why, despite Hollywood's recent spate of "small towns are evil places" type movies, at least some small towns are, in fact, lovely places to live:

A duck was reunited with her newborn brood Monday after Marin Humane Society workers and Kentfield firefighters rescued the ducklings from a storm drain in a parking lot off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Mark Litwin, president of Remington Partners Inc. at 919 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., noticed a duck hovering over the drain when he arrived for work at 9 a.m.

"I guess you could say I was a first responder," Litwin said. "There were a lot of nervous workers in our building. The mother duck was waiting impatiently nearby."

Humane Society personnel and Kentfield firefighters, removed the cast-iron grate over the drain and scooped out nine ducklings that Battalion Chief Michael Hadfield estimated were a day old or so.

"We made a mad dash to save them," Hadfield said. "Nine of them were stuck in the storm drain. … The last we saw them, they were all happily swimming down the creek."

By the way, I found the charming duckling picture here, a site that has a lot of other farm-related pics.