In order to save the duck, one must eat the duck. It may seem counterintuitive, but that’s the idea behind Rebecca Gilbert’s latest venture at the Native Earth Teaching Farm in Chilmark.

When a newly hatched mallard duckling crossed Clevelandtown Road Sunday, it was embarking on an odyssey. The trip would take it down a storm drain and then to a new home among chickens. It would involve police, the highway department and the kindness of strangers. It would give the duckling (gender yet unknown) a name: Stormy. Stormy, less than a week old, was observed Sunday crossing Clevelandtown Road when he walked across a storm grate and fell through to the bottom. “He was seen swimming in circles down at the bottom,” Edgartown police Sgt. Craig Edwards said.

Last week I began the column by writing about the death of David Masch, mentioning there would be a memorial on Sunday, Jan. 26, in Woods Hole. Since then though, the Masch/Swan household has informed me that the memorial for David is not open to the public.