About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2020)
Nick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com She (Times gainesvilletimes.com Friday, January 31,2020 A webbed Instagram sensation Ben Afquack at the Mall of America. “Pretty much, he’s a duck that goes on adventures in Minnesota,” says his owner Derek Johnson. Photo courtesy Derek Johnson Adventurous Minnesota duck is now famous online BY SHARYN JACKSON Star Tribune Move over ‘gray duck.’ A fluffy white bird from St. Paul is cur rently the most famous duck in Minnesota, thanks to some fast feet, fowl puns and a viral video. Recently, Derek Johnson posted 17 sec onds of his pet, Ben Afquack, drumming with his webbed feet on a snare. The video got a million views overnight on Facebook. It’s now up to 3 million, with tens of thousands of comments and shares, and more on other platforms. Ben Afquack’s Instagram, @min- nesotaduck, has grown to 41,000 followers. On a visit to the Winter Carnival recently, Johnson and his pet were mobbed by fans trying to take photos for their own social media accounts. The instant fame is all a little overwhelm ing for Johnson, 29, and his 10-month-old companion, whom he takes with him on “adventures” all over the Twin Cities. “It blew up,” Johnson said of the drum ming video. “People are making it into rap beats. A Detroit radio station was doing free style over the top of the beat. People are making remixes. It turned into this weird snowball thing. I don’t have time to keep up with all the messages. ” That’s just since the video took off, but Ben Afquack already had a devoted following before this latest hit. The popular Instagram account chroni cles the duck’s adventures with Johnson and his wife. There are photos of the duck at the State Fair, near a waterfall, and on the back of Johnson’s motorbike. “We brought him to the zoo. We brought him to the Mall of America. We even brought him to the gym once. The whole goal was to get him used to being around people and doing things with us,” Johnson said. “We wanted to socialize him and have him be more of a pet than a goldfish or a farm duck.” It would seem they got more than they bargained for. When a friend posted a photo of the duck last spring with the caption, “Felt cute, might delete idk,” Ben Afquack began his journey to become a full-blown social media star. In a phone interview with the Star Tri bune, Johnson explains how his furry friend became famous. Q: Tell us the story of Ben Afquack. A: I used to have a duck when I was a little bit younger, and, long story short, I was in a different place and in the breakup, she got to keep the duck. I got super attached to the stupid thing. I couldn’t believe how much I loved that little duck. I was like, ‘Someday, when I have my own house and I’m in a dif ferent place in life, I’m going to get another duck.’ When I bought a house, a week before we closed, I bought the duck. He was 1 day old, and he’s been going everywhere with me ever since. Q: Where are some of the places you’ve taken him? A: We take him hiking a lot, and we take him to beaches. He went kayaking with me. I brought him paddleboarding. He rides on the back of my mini motorcycle in the sum mer, in a pet carrier. We go everywhere on that, exploring different places. Q: Do you ever worry about him swim ming away? A: I couldn’t get rid of him if I tried. He is so attached to us. He won’t even go in the water unless I’m in there with him. He won’t get more than 5 feet away from me. He’ll notice and quack frantically and start to chase after me. That’s what I fell in love with. I’ve only heard of ducks as farm animals. But these things actually have personalities. Q: What’s Ben Afquack’s personality? A: He likes to cuddle, believe it or not. I’ll scoop him up and put his back to my chest and lean back, and he falls asleep on my chest while watching movies. He’s very playful. He was raised with dogs, so he’ll jump in and play with the dogs. He tries to nibble everything. He’ll nibble on zippers. He’ll quack when I come home. When we open the door, he’ll quack from wherever he is in the house. Q: Do you let him be free in your house all day? A: In the evenings. Right now, we made a shed into a duck mansion, and I feed him on a schedule. He’s a very messy eater and he’s not going to do that anywhere near my house. By the time I get home, I go get him, let him take a bath, and then he’s all pooped out by that point. I put his duck diaper on him and he roams free. Q: How did he wind up on Instagram? A: To be completely honest, it started as a way to kind of make fun of Instagram. Obvi ously he’s adorable. But he had this one pic ture where he’s walking away and he looked back, like an Instagram model, very provoc ative. While we were sitting there, my friend made a fake account with that one picture. We had four followers. Then I posted a pic ture of me on my motorcycle with him and it blew up. And one thing led to another. (John son’s friend still manages the account.) I don’t really do much social media. I’m not hip like that. I didn’t even have an Insta gram account until my friend made this one. I wanted to see what the rest of the world is seeing with my duck. I don’t even know how to work it. Q: Why is he called ‘Minnesota Duck’? A: The original name was Sir Quacksalot. As he started getting more popular, we were trying to figure out what represents what he does. Pretty much, he’s a duck that goes on adventures in Minnesota. It’s all local, home grown stuff. We brought him to the Winter Carnival. Oh my god, it was crazy. People were recog nizing us from the video. They were treating it like they were meeting Tom Brady. We got like 2 pictures and we had to get out of there. Q: What’s next for Ben Afquack? A: I totally don’t expect this to happen, but what I would love to do is use the popularity to bring him to a hospital or a treatment cen ter, a place where I could bring some hap piness to someone who’s not having a good day. People lose their minds when they meet him. It’s crazy how much he makes people’s day. I’d like to try to lift people’s spirits. Q: What do you do, Derek? A: I’m in school for computer science and I work full-time as a personal trainer. About 6 years ago, I got clean. I was a drug addict for many years, so I feel like I missed out on a lot of the things people do when they’re younger, because of the poor life choices I made. Ever since I got clean, my whole mentality has been try to move forward as much as possible, but also have fun along the way. I do everything I can not to take life so seriously. I’m psyched to be on the other side of things, and be alive, that I try to have as much fun as possible. Q: What else should fans know about Ben Afquack? A: As cool as he seems online, he’s about a thousand times cooler than that. A thousand times friendlier than you can imagine. He even lets you pet him. If you pet the side of his face, he falls asleep. Q: This makes me want to get a pet duck. A: I think everyone should. I thought it was such a dumb idea, but we got a little baby duck. A cute little puff ball who would eventually be a full-size bird. I don’t know why people don’t do this. If more people get ducks, we could have playdates. Except he’s actually afraid of ducks. When we brought him to the beach, he saw ducks and he ran behind the dog. Cold weather doesn’t have to mean a colorless lawn A little bit of warm weather and a hint of spring is just the kind of tease us Southerners like to get us to believe it’s close to tomato-planting season. Don’t jump ahead yet because we are going to get some more cold, so hold your horses. Even though we have a month or so more of winter, we do have some fun stuff beginning to show up in the landscapes. In Augusta, we are having our annual camellia show this week end, and the good news is there is no frost in the forecast, so the camellia blooms should be pristine for this weekend’s festivities. A cold snap nipped the early blooming saucer magnolias (Mag nolia x soulangeana) last week, but we are about to be loaded down with these purple, pink and white tulip-like flowers. This decidu ous magnolia really shines in the middle of winter with an awe some floral display. I like this plant in the right location because it doesn’t really have many pest problems. Try to avoid planting early bloom ing varieties because they will get knocked back every other year or so with a heavy cold snap. ‘Jane’ is one that nurser ies seem to keep that will usually wait to bloom until the cold has departed. Protected locations can help with the freeze issues as well. A plant that isn’t one that folks discuss much, but is worth a look for your landscapes is winter jas mine (Jasminum nudiflorum). This yellow-blooming free flowing shrub and groundcover is one of the first plants to bloom in January. Winter jasmine is great for massings and especially good for hillside plantings. This jasmine is low maintenance, drought toler ant and will handle a lot of shade. Mixed into a landscape properly, it can add some early flowers when finding color is its most difficult. Prunus is the genus name of 400 or so species of flowering trees and shrubs. Peach, plum, cherry, almond and apricot are all under this genus. One of the earli est bloomers in this group is the flowering apricot (Prunus mume), which can be easily confused with flowering cherries that are ubiqui tous in the landscapes. Flowering apricot is a medium sized tree about 15-feet tall with a similar spread. The pink blooms explode on the leafless tree in early January way before the plant sprouts its greenery in the spring. This tree really cheats us into thinking spring is near, so don’t be fooled. But do enjoy the show. An interesting plant that is fun to dab around the yard is paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha). This medium-sized deciduous shrub has a very open form with thick branches that fills the tips of the limbs with large, white-and-yel- low flowers in February. A bonus is they are fragrant. Paperbush is a great, showy plant for early blooms that are hard to miss. In the right place, all plant collectors need this one in their arsenal. It may be early winter still has plenty of more teeth to show, but enjoy the spots of color nature is offering in these dreary times. Campbell Vaughn is an agriculture and natural resource agent with the University of Georgia Extension in Augusta. He can be reached at ecvaughn@uga.edu. CAMPBELL VAUGHN ecvaughn@uga.edu Spring Chicken Festival finds another new home BY NICK BOWMAN nbowman@gainesvilletimes.com The Spring Chicken Festival has yet another new home in 2020: the Lake Lanier Olympic Park. Originally held in downtown Gainesville, the April festival was moved to Longwood Park in 2019 to make way for construction down town for the Parkside on the Square project, which was scrapped in late 2019 for lack of funding. With a new project slated for the same spot on the square, the festi val celebrating all things chicken — but mostly the wings, legs, thighs and breasts — is moving to the Olympic Park on Clarks Bridge Road instead of its original location downtown. The new location for the festival was announced in January. The festival is coming up April 25.
