The geese are more trouble than they're worth. Paul Theroux's essay in the Smithsonian about geese makes me think he's a raving lunatic.
On Friday, the geese got wanderlust again. We'd been keeping tabs on them all afternoon, and they seemed to be just hanging out. Then, while G and I were outside looking at the chicken tractor (she wants to build her own), the neighbors' caretaker drove up to our house. He asked if those white things were ours, told me that they were all the way down the road (about a quarter mile) at their barn, and that he'd be happy to help me herd them back here. I walked part way to the barn to help out, but on the way back, the darn geese ducked into the driveway of the neighbor next door. I squeezed between the fence and the evergreen tree to head them off, only to discover, too late, that the snow under the tree is a completely icy. I promptly fell and cut my left hand on the jagged ice.
The caretaker continued to help me herd the geese after I fell, but the neighbor's dog followed me home. It's a sweet-dispositioned Great Pyrenees pup (at the same age as our dog - 7 months old - it's actually twice the size of our little English Shepherd), but our dog being the possessive ES that she is, became really angry at this intruder and tried to start a fight. Luckily, between G and me, we managed to prevent any serious fighting and I had to lock Gali up...poor thing...it's "her" property after all, and she was only doing her job.
I finally had to call the neighbor to come get her dog because, as it turns out, it loves kids and refused to leave because my kids and G's kids were playing outside. It may be bigger than my dog, but it sure is dumber.
To top off Gali's day, when dh took her out for her evening walk, she took off after a possum. It was probably as big as she and has much sharper teeth. Dh kept calling for her to come back, but I guess she wasn't going to back down from this fight after her humiliating exit from the earlier fight. Dh thinks she may have been nipped because she had a small red dot on her muzzle when she finally came back.
What a day. And, as ds#1 pointed out, it all started with the stupid geese.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
