Swift as the Wild Goose Flies...and Dies

Nothing was going to stop these geese, so I strung another, lower string this time, from one end of the pond to the other. They learned to go in between and fly over. I was at my wits end when I decided to call the state wildlife something. I got someone with a very southern accent...VERY, and told him of my dilemma. He asked if we lived on a lot of land...me being so literal and all I was visualizing the farm, and I responded, "Yes." And he said, "Can you shoot?" I responded, "Well, this is North Carolina," to which he responded, "No, I mean can you shoot on your land?" I assured him that would not be a consideration in this neighborhood, and I wasn't quite sure where he was going with his train of thought. He seemed to back down from the idea of me shooting them, and then told me how he and his buddy could come out here and take care of them and we'd never see the Lula Belle's and Billy Bob's ever again, "You know what I mean?" Oh yeah, I got the picture and just visualized them reeling them in and throwing them in trashcans and hauling them off, with the geese squawking and screaming, OR NOT. No, I decided I would try a few more things before I called them again.

I believe we are at Plan E by now. People took to asking me how the "Goose Situation" was coming, people I didn't know, and I started to become nervous, because someone in this frame of mind is first up in the news in Orlando. (The evening news usually started with the animal stories, and I just knew they would take the geese side over ours if the local affiliates ever got wind about what I was doing.)Someone suggested we get a pellet gun and just shoot around them and it would scare them away. That was going to be THE LAST resort, until one day I had had ENOUGH. I stormed in from the back porch and went straight to the garage. I picked up what I thought would do the trick and came back in and said, "OK, Randy, I've had enough. Where are the bullets?" He looked up from the newspaper he was reading, and said very matter-of-factly, "You're not going to get very far. That's a paint gun." I told him to find a gun out of all the "beginner's guns" Matthew had inherited from grandfathers that we kept hidden in the attic and would pass down to our grandchildren someday, and to find some bullets and then go shoot around them...NOT AT THEM. So he found Matthew's pellet gun, along with some pellets, and it really did scare them off, but we had to do it about twice a day, as they would fly out about 10 feet and wait for us to go back in and they'd hop right back up in our yard. It was obvious that they were toying with us, and were trying to use reversed psychology, making us emotionally crazy as I had done to them. (You really do reap what you sow.)

I probably became TOO verbal after that, because people started telling me ways they had heard to get rid of the geese. Plan F involved me going to Sam's and buying the bulk Alka-seltzer. I was told to dilute it and pour it along the shoreline. I tore into those individual wrappers like a dog with a bone, about 100 of them, and plopped, plopped, fizzed fizzed, Oh what a relief it is'd, until I had two huge containers of fizzing, bubbling water to pour about a foot above the water line. (I didn't worry about it making it to the fish because it was so diluted, and it was the Alka-seltzer that was supposed to do whatever it did to repel the geese on the surface.) I poured and poured and had to make some more. It really did seem to work, but as I had to tell my neighbor later on, it rained and the geese were back the next day, and I wasn't willing to do that particular plan again. (By the way, if you need any Alka-seltzers, I have plenty.)

I never made it to plan G. I was at the pool one day, and someone told me one of the geese had been killed accidentally, and ended with these words that were to haunt me until last week, when I heard an addendum to what I heard that day. (To back up, my first thought was, "Oh no. Did I kill it?" and "Can they trace it back to me?")Her words were, "You know they mate for life." No, I didn't know that. I couldn't get it out of my head how sad that must be to go the rest of your life doomed to never have a mate again. Your one true love gone forever. I wondered if they were in the early stages of their relationship or were in their twilight years, which was what I was hoping, but would never know. I came home from the pool and went straight to the back porch to look out to see if the geese were there. To my horror, there was only one goose there. It was the goose in mourning. I burst out crying, and would start up again, every time I looked out and it was there, all alone. I would just stand at the window and watch and pray that the other geese wouldn't black-ball it and it would be doomed to be a lone goose for the rest of its life. There was only one time that I recall that other geese tried to fly into our pond area at that time, and the single goose honked them away. Meditation: We all have our dark moments and just need time alone to recoup sometimes, even when others mean well and try to help. We just need to be respectful of each individual's needs

After about a week, the other geese did return and the loner would just hang out by itself on the outskirts of the flocks. I found myself counting geese everywhere I went to see if there were odd numbers of flocks and I always came up with an even number. It wasn't looking too bright for the single goose. I would see other single geese out and about in town, and started wondering if I maybe got them together, they could make a new policy on the "mate for life" rule. They could just be friends, couldn't they? Maybe nobody had ever tried before and didn't know what they would do if they were given a second chance!

There just didn't seem to be a way I could experiment with the geese, so I just watched and waited and kept counting, until one day, I got an odd number. I recounted those geese five times or more until I realized the goose was out of mourning and back with the flock. They would still swim in pairs, but the goose was obviously included back in. Meditation:"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1:20) I also thought of the geese even living out Solomon's general observations in Ecclesiastes 3, entitled, "A Time for Everything." [There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...]

Before I close I need to tell you what I found out last week that just made my week! I got it from goosehuntingtips.com. The male and female stay together all their life; it is one of their most natural Canada goose habits. If one should disappear the living Canada Goose generally finds another mate. Another interesting characteristic is that the family stays together for one year after the goslings are born. However, upon return to the breeding territory the goslings will leave the parents to fend for themselves.They will then fight for a mate and like the parents be with that mate for life. This is another natural of the many Canada goose habits."
See, there really was "nothing to fear, but fear itself." By the way...there's more.