From my 11 year old self!

The Geese are in here among the stones but 

unfortunately the camera would not zoom in close enough

Geese have always amazed me and held a certain fascination for me.  I love watching them and marvel at their formations as they fly as well as many myths that surround these amazing creatures.  One of the beautiful things about spring is the return of geese, hearing the honking before they come into sight with the elegance that is uniquely theirs. Watching them waddle across the fields or idly float in the large puddles of water or on lakes continues to hold much fascination.   I also know that I am in somewhat of a minority.  I have heard many complaints about the large numbers of geese, how much mess they make and how contrary they can be.  Despite these particular qualities I still love to see the geese!

Geese have held this appeal for me since I was a child and I have a particularly vivid and wonderful memory of seeing a family of geese in July, the adults were unable to fly because of the molting and with their baby goslings were waddling off across a marsh.  It was too much for an eleven year old to stay in the vehicle and as my father stopped to look at the geese I was out and running across the marsh to catch them.  You can imagine the ruckus the geese had has they tried to get to the water and safety...but not before I managed to catch up and had the opportunity to cuddle the fuzzy babies.  It is an awesome memory and one the brings a smile every time I see these birds in all of their glory and beauty and to see the new born fuzzy babies brings to mind a wonderful memory of a fabulous day and a rarer treat.

This experience was forever writ in poem as in September when we returned to school (Grade 6 with Mr. Childs) we were asked to compose poems as part of our literature assignment

The Geese

I saw some geese

they didn`t fly away

I guess they lost their feathers that day.

The geese had three goslings

they were on a barren

I went and took them in my arms.

I still have the poem, safely tucked away in a memory box along with the ribbon for first place in the class. So my romance with the geese lingers and I still look on in awe as they fly in formation, waddle along,come in for a landing on the water.  And this all comes to mind because I saw two of them waddling through the church cemetery on Sunday morning as I got out of my car to go into church and for a moment I was eleven again and so very, very tempted to run across the field. . . just in case I could catch them!

A whole gaggle one street over, September 2015