Obon is a Japanese holiday festival observed Every August (the 12th this year), which honors the spirits of departed ancestors and where families welcome them back into their homes.

One custom during obon is to create a "spirit animal" out of cucumbers. Traditionally, a family will make a shoryouma ("spirit horse") to welcome the departed back in their home at the beginning of obon, as it allows for fast travel to speed up the reunion. When the holiday is finished, a shoryouma ("spirit cow") is made for the spirits to leisurely return back to the land of the dead.

Twitter user Kanko Sekiguchi (@pkb5648) ran into a bit of a problem when her mother told her to prepare a spirit horse for her father, however. Opening the refrigerator, she found that she was fresh out of cucumbers.

So Sekiguchi used a little bit of ingredient improvisation. Using the only veggies she had in her fridge, she crafted a spirit steed for her father's spirit--although she had to improvise the animal as well:

With only jumbo mushrooms available in her fridge, Sekiguchi crafted the only animal she could make out of them--a duck! She shared the photos saying "there wasn't anything we could do abou tit, so my father will be riding a fluffy duck."

Many were smitten with the duck, and the prospect of a spirit returning home being surprised by such an unusual but adorable animal to ride on. This isn't a faux pas, either, as many people around Japan have been crafting cute and quirky non-traditional spirit animals for some time now.