Our Wayward Geese

About mid-morning I heard someone shooting a gun. That isn’t uncommon in our neighborhood.

It continued. Then the phone rang. It was Nick our neighbor. He called to inform me that our geese were in the field that bordered his property and the owner of that property was shooting at them.

I told the boys to keep doing school and I would go round up our geese. No problem right? I have had to round them up many times.

I met Nick and he walked with me down to the field. While we were walking he called the neighbor and let him know I was coming to remove the geese from his property. I got on the phone with him and he reassured me that he wasn’t shooting at the geese. Just trying to scare them off. Being domestic geese they don’t move when they here gun fire. Living on this lane they hear it every now and then so they must not know the danger it poses to the wild geese.

The problem with our geese being on his property is that it is a wheat field with fresh winter wheat that has begun to grow. They are not just eating the green plant but pulling up the plants roots and all.

It also happens to be very wet. He warned me that I might get stuck. I asked Nick to stick around in case he needed to extract me from the mire into which I was headed.

Here is the field. Sorry. No picture of the geese in it. I was a little preoccupied with 1) trying not to fall or get stuck and 2) trying to get behind the geese. They have a much lower center of gravity and webbed feet that apparently don’t sink into the mud. Hence, they moved much faster than me.

After about 15 minutes I asked Nick to call the boys and ask them to bring some grain.

The boys joined me. The grain didn’t help. Of course new wheat plants are much better than grain. The dad didn’t mind eating it out of my hand but then he just went back to the field. Opposite the direction I was desiring.

Nearly a half hour after I first arrived the boys and I were successful in herding them out of the field and back home.

My Bogs were covered in mud. A good 3 inches surrounded each of my feet. I thought I was stuck once….in the bog that was the field, but my Bogs didn’t let me down.

Get it? “bog that was a field” “Bog boots”. A little mud humor for you 🙂

So here is my question to all of you….

Which geese do I like better?

These are Christmas yard ornaments that we have had for years. They are all lights. They boys laid out some blue lights under them to simulate water. Very cute.

These are the trespassing, winter wheat eating geese.

When the boys put our Christmas decorations out I thought to myself ,”Wow! Isn’t it cool that we now have REAL geese.”

I’ve changed my mind.

Jerkey anyone?

Karen