Goose Tantrums

I'm in BIIIIIG trouble. I dared to go out of town over Labor Day weekend. I watered all the plants, inside and out. We told our friends so they wouldn't be constantly calling. We packed a ton of stuff. My brother came over to check the mail and take care of the cats and dogs. We thought of everything, right? Nope. We forgot to make arrangements for somebody to feed the geese.

I did think about it for a minute but decided "they're wild animals, they'll be just fine for three days." Canada geese have been around for thousands of years and they managed to survive just fine before I was out there throwing out shelled corn every day. Besides, I had other things to worry about, like taking a 1 year old on his first long car trip (6 hours, one way). So we hugged the dogs, petted the cats and went on our merry way. The baby did great, much better than Mommy (I got carsick), especially since it was over 100 degrees every day we were in Missouri. I was glad to come home because I missed all my critters even though we were gone only three days. The cats could have cared less that we were home and the weenie dogs were beside themselves with joy. The wildlife, on the other hand, was a different story.

We'd been home less than an hour before I was out back, filling feeders and throwing corn. I didn't see hide nor hair of any of the regulars for the rest of the day. Same thing the next day too. Apparently squirrels don't hold much of a grudge because they were the first ones back. Either that, or they were happy I was putting out more peanuts. The birds were back the day after that and so were the ducks. But not the geese. They considered themselved abandoned and they were not going to take it lightly!

I knew they'd been looking for me because there were goose feathers in the swimming pool -and there's a perfectly good river out back! I half expected them to surround the house again, but they didn't. They just disappeared. The ducks were happy because they didn't have to share the corn but I missed my goosies. Gads, am I turning into Mother Goose? Hey, there's a Halloween costume idea! Anyway, after about a week they showed up again, but not on a daily basis like they'd been doing for months. Oh sure, maybe there's a reasonable explanation, like some sort of migratory thing, but I doubt it. My spoiled rotten geese are throwing a temper tantrum. I can read "Parents" magazine to learn how to handle the baby's tantrums, but who knows how to handle geese tantrums?

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