VICTORIA -- There may be 'gnome place like home,' but for Linda, 'gnome news' is not necessarily good news.

"That’s where it was," she says, pointing to the roof of her greenhouse. "They got up there and grabbed it."

This is the scene of the crime where one of Linda’s most beloved ornaments was gnome-napped.

"I was really distressed because [the gnome] went back to the 1930s," she says. "It was my grandmother’s."

So Linda wrote a note to post on her fence: "My gnome is missing!!! Please return. Thank you."

Linda’s had other things pilfered too, including the pump for this front yard fountain her dad built. It couldn’t be replaced so she turned into a bird bath.

"My daughter bought a rubber ducky [for it]," Linda says.

The classic yellow duck didn’t live alone in the bath for long.

"Rubber duckies seemed to come fast and furious after that!" Linda smiles.

A few were gifts from friends who visited abroad (the Roman Legion duck, Harrods Department Store duck), but most of the 22 ducks in her front yard just arrived.

"I’ve come out in the morning and there are extra ducks," she says.

Big ducks, little ducks, and dozens of ducks in between.

"I have no idea who they are," Linda answers when I ask who’s depositing the ducks in her bird bath.

Linda does know about the dozens and dozens of ducks inside her home, where she ran a daycare for decades.

"The kids brought wee ducks," she smiles. "So they accumulated!"

"There is a lady in the (United) States who has 9,000!" Linda says, before I see the picture of the woman immersed in a bathtub full of rubber ducks. "I’m not going that far folks!"

Linda’s happy with having about 100 ducks.

"Mind you, I’ve had a 'de-duck-tion' or two," she says, taking a beat for the pun to be appreciated. "People have taken my ducks."

Which brings us back to that stolen gnome, which somebody eventually found discarded in the fountain behind the B.C. Legislature buildings after reading Linda’s note.

"They brought it back and I was really excited," she smiles.

So Linda wrote another note to post on her front fence: "The Gnome’s Home!!!"

"It says the world can be good," Linda says.

It’s one of the reasons she keeps the ducks in her front yard, surrounded by so many blooming flowers; it says to people passing that this is the sort of place where beauty and whimsy can be bountiful.

"Every garden doesn’t have to be plants all lined-up in a row," Linda says. "Why not have fun?"

Why not create a place where a diversity of rubber ducks can find their gnome sweet gnome.