About a week ago, I was down at Council Point Park one morning, and, while walking through the parking lot, a very large flock of Canada Geese were flying overhead.
Their honking, while in flight, was almost deafening. In fact, the flock was so large, they were actually in two V formations; these photos shows the bigger of the two Vs.
As old as I am, there are some things in nature that continue to fascinate me and a large flock of migrating geese, playing follow the leader to parts unknown, has always made me stop in my tracks and take notice of them.
I whipped out the camera and took a few shots as they stayed in that near-perfect V formation, and then slowly faded into the distance.
Moments later I was on the perimeter path, where a few gosling families grazed nearby. Once again I marveled at how quickly the goslings had grown since the first time I spotted them at the Park in early May. When you compare the offspring of the different families, it is even easier to see how the goslings have grown in leaps and bounds.
But, even though the first family of goslings are nearly the same size as their parents, they are still far from fledging and being on their own. At this point, they can only gaze upward to the sky and aspire to one day become a part of a contingent of geese like you see in the photos above.
In the interim, try as they may, their wings, unlike the mighty wingspans of their parents, just resemble wing dings right now.
But, of course a gosling can dream big, like this little guy in the left-hand corner.
Even though the goslings do nothing but graze on the grass at the Park all day, they still need the rest of their feathers to grow in and those tiny wings to develop as well. Did you know that the average goose eats four pounds of grass a day? I think the only time the goslings aren’t eating, is when they have swimming lessons, or they are sleeping.
I was remembering about being a youngster myself, way back in the day, as I watched those little nippers toddling about, their parents never far from them.
I’ve often mentioned that my parents were very strict with me. As an only child, I knew my place and that I must toe the line, or pay the penalty for not doing so. There would be no slip-ups by little Linda or she’d get a lickin’ and there were no older siblings to have smoothed the path along the way to make it easier for me. On this Father’s Day weekend, thinking way back to my formative years, it was my mother who was the disciplinarian and not my father …
Except when it came to food and mealtimes.
I know that experts say that adults can generally recall events from the time when they were just three or four years old. I believe that to be a true statement. I vividly recall a salmon-colored plastic child’s plate that Mom used to put my dinner in. She poured hot water in the bottom portion, screwed the cap tightly, ladled my dinner into it, then placed it in front of me. There were little blue, red, yellow and green fish that would “swim” in that water. But I couldn’t see them until I ate my food. I never got to be picky about what was put in front of me either. I may have occasionally voiced my displeasure and balked a bit with the menu that night, but I knew enough not to make an issue of it …
Except when it came to peas.
I hated those *&^% things! From the time I graduated from my Little Miss Muffet spoon to a big-girl fork, I had nothing but disdain for peas. How were you supposed to eat them? It was hard enough to round ‘em up on your plate and onto your spoon, then try and make a quick dive into your mouth, before they rolled off the edge of the spoon, but balancing them on a fork … well that was a challenge that was a whole ‘nother story. And my father being European, was all about eating with a knife and fork. He’d watch me struggling with those stupid peas and trying to meet his standards of how to eat my dinner like a young lady. Sigh.
I didn’t like the taste of those peas either and occasionally (very occasionally), I’d protest a little saying “oh, peas again” and my mother would give me “the look” and then the lecture that they were “full of iron and would make me big and strong” so I’d best eat them up. “I thought you said liver did that Mommy?” my brave and impertinent little self once said. My father’s response to that comment was “just eat your peas Linda; they’ll put hair on your chest.” Mom rolled her eyes and said “oh Max – really?!” Occasionally I got the lecture about starving children in poor countries who would love to be eating peas or liver, so I just resigned myself that I’d never eat peas or liver when I was grown up. And I don’t.
While watching those feathery fellows scattered along the perimeter path, beak-deep in the tender grass, I had this flashback of the dinner table many decades ago. Eat your grass little ones and you’ll up grow up big and strong, so one day you will fly in a flock as big as this one.
Today is Nature Photography Day – if you’re so inclined, hope you had an opportunity to get out and see and photograph a few critters today!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Fantastic shots, Linda! Wow! Those goslings sure remind me of raptor (Theropod) dinosaurs. Birds certainly are remaining forms of dinosaurs! Just this morning, while standing on the front porch while seeing a fleet bird fly by, i thought, “Thank God, they didn’t go extinct with that asteroid impact; what an emptier world it would be without them!” 🙂
That “V” is awesome. Paleontologists say that some of the large, terrestrial dinosaurs migrated in vast herds.
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Glad you liked these shots Tom. The goslings are so big and yes, that standing gosling sure looked like a dinosaur, especially when you saw his big feet – they looked especially big the way he was standing. That’s interesting that the terrestrial dinosaurs migrated in herds – I didn’t know that. This really was an impressive “V” and the one behind it was as well. I am always in awe when they go overhead. It was a little early for them to be migrating though, but we have had especially chilly air this week (real feel of 47 yesterday morning), so perhaps they think Fall is around the bend.
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I was threatened with a spanking many times but I can’t remember getting any. Fortunately I didn’t have to eat everything, just most things and we never had liver as my dad didn’t like it. The goslings are adorable and they are getting big.
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I didn’t get many spankings either and can’t remember what I even got them for to be honest, except once I got into my mom’s foundation and spilled it all over the bathroom sink. She never wore makeup except for special occasions and those were few and far between, but she was pretty mad at me. My father not only liked liver, but chicken livers as well – double ugh. I suffered through many liver dinners of some sort or another and they were not prepared with bacon and onions either. 🙂 Yes, those goslings are getting so big. Yesterday the parents were out paddling around and one of the goslings was diving … he was not so good at it though and kept toppling over. The other goslings were watching him in wonderment just like kids would do if another kid was standing on his head!
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Two days in a row last week we saw large flocks a geese fly over and thought it was odd seeing them this time of year. It has been an odd year though.
Will men ever learn that the “it will put hair on your chest” argument doesn’t work when raising daughters? “No, dad I don’t want hair on my chest!” LOL!
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I thought this was really odd too Ruth – way too early to be migrating. It sure has been an odd year. My father said that all the time – yes I’ll pass on the hair on my chest!
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That explains why I saw/heard a flock going over this week…..and thought it odd too. Maybe summer is over! That was interesting and informative Linda. I didn’t know they ate so much grass. The pictures are great too!
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Thanks Joni – glad you liked the pictures and I was amazed to see the flock overhead. It sure felt like Summer was over yesterday … real feel of 47 degrees F (8C)! I looked to see how much they ate because sometimes I’ll go by the goslings twice if not three times and they are always eating!
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Woke up to rain again….and they had said today was supposed to be nice and sunny! So sick of this weather!
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I had heard we would have rain this morning ONLY … they really dropped the ball on the forecast as it rained the entire day, non-stop rain! I am so sick of it as well and the other day they had a meteorologist on from the National Weather Service and he said this overcast and rainy spell will now extend into July – originally they said all of June only.
Great! I wanted to paint some trim on the garage which I noticed was peeling and chipping at the bottom … tried last Summer and it was either rainy, too humid or too hot … at this rate, might as well wait until next year.
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I’m sick of looking at paint samples, so I’m all for leaving the painting for next year. I’ve given up scheduling a cleaning for the deck and the mildew on the north siding, as it never dries out enough to bother.
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I still have not even scheduled an A/C check – I pay for the Gold Plan which is an A/C check and a furnace check per year, 10% off parts and service calls if any problems. I’ve had the A/C on maybe three times and that was just to clear out the humidity – it is 68 in the house right now and last year it was sto cold in August that I could have put the heat on. I have not even scheduled for gutter cleaning and I’m wondering about the power wash siding cleaning with the bleach as well since it will be like this all of June and into the beginning of July. I used to wash the house down once/year but like you thought why bother with all the rain – the mildew on the bricks and siding is worrisome though. The paint samples are a drag … you bring home 15 chips and they all look the same. When I had to repaint the area that was messed up from the plumbing work downstairs, I tried to match the tiles which were put down 40+ years ago. I brought home chips and was so off. First time painted what I thought matched … no way was it close. The second time I went more with a greige and it worked better. I’m not good at picking paint at all.
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Greige is in…..there are so many different shades of it now, but I can’t have cool undertones as my kitchen/dinette face north and it just looks like mud with the lack of light. So after 3 samples, from 3 different paint stores, none of which I was happy with, I finally settled on Muslin by Benjamin Moore, which is a warmish neutral which is supposed to go with everything according to the sales clerk. It does seem to be the best of the ones I’ve tried. It looks good this morning. I have them painted on strips of bristolboard hanging from the cupboards. I have a lot of old oak trim around doors so needed a warmer paint. I decided not to go with new white baseboards as all the others in the house are wood and it would look weird, and I can’t afford to replace 14 doors! It looks nice and sunny out today finally!
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I like the Muslin by Benjamin Moore – I just Googled to see it. Browns and beiges have always been my favorite color. I would not do white baseboards either. This entire house is done in an eggshell color with a pinky/beige tinge to it. It looks nice and makes it lighter in here, but the vacuum is wide and has black bumper guards and extension cord which have rubbed onto the light-colored baseboards and the paint it not glossy so not scrubbable (even with the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge) so I have to live with the marks. We did not have sun, but did not have rain today – yay! I thought it might rain before I got home from walking as it was so dark and gloomy out..
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It was not as nice a day as I expected, but like you said, at least no rain!
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It is a little sad that we are giddy over gray and gloomy skies when there is no rain – the weatherman says it is like the Summer of 1992 when volcanic ash was over the entire U.S. and it was termed “The Bummer Summer of 1992” because it was gray and gloomy day after day. I can’t remember that at all – maybe you were affected too and remember?
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I don’t remember 1992 summer being bad, but maybe it was the summer that it never rained – I do remember one summer when everything was very dry and every forecast rain had “dissipated”. I got sick of hearing that word – the crops and lawns were all dried out.
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I remember that drought – cannot remember the year it was … early 90s I believe. I thought all I did was water everything and it seems there was a water shortage and we had to water even/odd days depending on your street address. The grass was wiry like a Brillo pad and I just let the grass go unwatered as they said it would come back and just worried about the flower only. I think I had buckets from the day we could water, to use on the days we couldn’t and covered them to avoid getting mosquito larvae in them. The weather is not right though – I can never remember hearing about so many earthquakes in the past either. Another big one in Japan this morning. I heard about it this morning, then nothing after that.
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That is a good summation – “the weather is not right”!
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And … the weekend weather forecast is out … gray and dreary Saturday morning, rain in the afternoon, storms Saturday night into Sunday morning. I would like a re-do of Spring and Summer is not starting out too great either.
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It does make you wonder if the sun will just disappear altogether!
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So much information, Linda.
The V shapes of the birds are magnificent, can understand your fascination with them. We see them here too, especially when the days begin to get shorter and the sun calms its rays a bit.
The goslings are smart- they really look smart- like caterpillars they love to eat and eat, till the wings burst from their sides and they can fly away from their very particular parents.
i can remember stories of being forced to eat and to clean up my plate and children who don’t have enough to eat and so on. Needless to say I am now following their advice and wish I hadn’t. I love peas- we eat with our hands, so it is easy to catch the little fellows and pop them into our mouths.
I love the positivity in your posts.
Susie
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Those V shapes have always been amazing to see and they rarely stray from the V – I remember reading years ago that they fly in that formation because they are more aerodynamic to fly that way. The goslings eat constantly and that is what may be Google to see how much they ate … they ate so much that look how big they got … except those tiny wings.
I was always told to eat my first course before I could have dessert. Not fun with liver or chicken livers – yes they are good for you, but I never cared for the taste, but I did eat it. Well you have a better way to eat peas and maybe they would be a bigger draw if forks could be abandoned and even spoons all the time. Glad you like the positivity Susie – I think you will like the pictures I picked for tomorrow.
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I can’t believe how big those goslings are getting! Around here I often see Canada geese fly in a V-formation including during the summer. As to peas and liver, we had both when I was a kid too. I loved the peas because they were fresh from the garden and tasted yummy, but liver!! 😂 I’m with you on that one!
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Sabine, some of them are nearly as big as the parents – it’s just amazing how they have grown. The pictures I used for today’s Father’s Day post was when they were very young and still yellow and fuzzy. I watched the parent bending down to their level and it was such a tender moment to see. I am waiting for the geese to leave the Park while they lose their flight feathers and their annual molt. They are usually gone by now – they paddle to another body of water where they are safe from land predators. I didn’t see them all last week and figured they were gone and they surprised me as I saw three families on Friday morning. I was prepared to write about the geese leaving the Park and it wasn’t quite time – I almost jumped the gun! I’ve never had peas fresh from the garden, just the canned variety. The liver and chicken livers, no thank you, and I don’t care how good it is for you!
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Canned peas are awful! No wonder you don’t like them! Get a small bag of frozen small peas next time you go to the store. You might be surprised what you discover! Or try some crunchy sugar snap or snow peas! 😋
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OK, I will try that and maybe I can learn to like peas and my mom used to use the baby peas sometimes, which were even smaller than the regular ones. (All the easier to roll around!)
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Those little goslings are practicing flapping their wings. I love the way you arranged the photos in your post to make it seem like they were flapping in response to seeing the older geese flying overhead! 4 pounds of grass/ day??? No wonder they grow so fast!
My father was the disciplinarian in our family. I think it was just his nature. My mom was more soft-hearted. I was the youngest and the prodigal. I think my parents did not know what to make of me. Now I’m sorry I caused them so much trouble when I was younger.
I used to hide my peas in a covered container or feed them to my poor dog. Anything to get out of eating them. My parents were not too strict with us as far as food went. If we really protested, we didn’t have to eat something we didn’t like (such as liver and onions!) I still don’t eat liver, but I now love peas. Here is my dad’s poem about peas:
I eat my peas with honey,
I’ve done it all my life.
They do taste kind of funny,
But it keeps them on my knife.
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Thank you Laurie – when I went through all the photos I saw there were two gosling photos where they were looking up and then I had all the goslings flapping their wings so I thought “I will show how they aspire to be in that flock.” It was quite shady that morning – the goslings were under a tree and I took many other photos of them flapping their little wings, but they were too dark to use unfortunately. Sometimes you have to take pictures on the fly … one minute they are there and the next minute the goslings are in the Creek.
I was Daddy’s little girl when I was younger and my mom pretty much did the “rearing” of me.
I couldn’t get away with feeding my peas to the dog – my parents were always on me about eating … sit up straight and don’t slouch, no elbows on the table, using my napkin and my father especially, teaching me how to use a knife and fork when I was barely out of a small child’s spoon. He ate everything with knife and fork – even BBQ ribs or fried chicken … not fun to be so rigid. I love your dad’s poem and that is so true … those silly peas would roll all over the place and there we were chasing around to get every last one! Thank you for sharing this with me. Honey would keep them all in one place for sure. 🙂
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such wise
little teachers 🙂
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They are getting big!
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And a whole lotta attitude as well!
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I took my client out today ours were just about the same size as the parents!
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I know – it is amazing isn’t it?
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Great photos – all of them! They goslings sure have grown – they sure are eating all of their greens ;-). I’m a pea fan and green beans, but my younger brother can’t stand them peas – no chance getting him to eat them. I think humans are an either or an or on peas – either they like ’em or they don’t and that dislike will last forever. Way to live up to your grown-up goals of never eating them again!
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The goslings are now teenagers and in that gangly looking stage. And this morning they had a lot of attitude, hissing just like their parents (the parents were stationed, one on each side of the path and all the “kids” sitting or standing in the middle of the path … so where do you walk without offending any of them?) 🙂 I suppose I could give peas another try again, but they were served 3-4 times a week for dinner – maybe I’ll expand my horizons again.
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Yeah, you don’t wanna mess with them when they’re hissing!
At first I wasn’t fond of peas, especially those from a can, until I found the tiny sweet peas or I had peas fresh from the pod before being cooked. It is an aquired taste – if you don’t like ’em, leave ’em for something you do prefer to eat!
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Geese and peas … tread lightly. 🙂 My mom did use the tiny sweet peas in the silver can I think … still could not get past them.
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Don’t worry – I’ll never force you to eat peas!! 🙂
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When I see all Mr.’s tasty-looking dishes, I’d consider re-thinking peas. 🙂
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He appreciates your compliment :-)!
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He deserves it … I hope when retired I can take the time to fix more appetizing and healthier meals for myself … I always feel like I am scrambling around. Before walking and blogging, I used to take all of Saturday to cook and do meal prep and freeze it so I had nothing to do all week, but heat and eat and do dishes. But the food never tastes as good after freezing it and I started to resent a whole day of time in the kitchen, then Sunday was relegated to chores inside and out. or errands, I just feel cheated spending too much time doing things … it is wrong, I know. I have to find better balance for my time … Robb won’t retire for another 3 years, and another 3 years of scrambling around will make it worse. I know the blogging is taking up big chunks of time… it is all about balance.
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Dear miss Linda………………………..yes everyone I think is in awe when they see the geese fly in formation……………those two were huge gatherings indeed……………………………sounds like your little plastic dinner plate was cute to see………………….and eat from even if it was peas or liver,………………….so do you have hair on your chest ?…………..oh no I forgot you no longer eat peas nor liver……………………….yes the goslings over here eat all day long and grow fast…………….
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Hi Ann Marie – yes, it always amazes me to this day, but I am a person who used to marvel at the Goodyear Blimp when they kept it at the Grosse Ile Airport during the three days for the Grand Prix weekend, and it would fly overhead twice a day, each of the days it was in town. We would hear it arrive on the Thursday night and often the windows were open and I’d run outside to see it all lit up in the night sky. Such a sight to see. It made a loud noise as it flew overhead. It doesn’t put in an appearance anymore now – I don’t know why. I can picture that dinner plate and those little fish. The goslings are so big, just like yours. The one family I saw this morning have all their dark markings on the side, and head, and white tail feathers, and black beaks … looking like little mirror images of their parents.
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I’m totally with you in regards to peas! I’m sure my mom served those awful things out of a can but I don’t like frozen or fresh ones either. Just yuck. Fortunately, my parents indulged me so I didn’t have to choke them down. I did acquire a taste for other hated vegetables as I got older, but never peas… or beets.
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Oh Janis – I am the same way with beets, and I do eat other veggies, but not these two. My mom used to love beets, the ones in a syrupy sauce and the pickled variety. I’m never been a pickle lover either … it must have been all the pickled beets I had to eat as a child! Thank goodness I wasn’t forced to eat the pickled herring that my father liked!
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I am so glad that you got to see the gooslings. ❤
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They are growing up fast Zena!
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because you had your camera close by you were able to shoot quickly! Just like a gunslinger!
Hopefully no geese died?
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Yup – I learned after that big mute swan that suddenly appeared right in front of me and I was still fumbling with the peanut bag and barely had time to get the camera to take its picture – that swan was there for 90 seconds at most … it just stopped to say “hey”. I was pleased I could get the goslings flipping their wings … so sweet to see this, even though they were in a shaded area, early morning shade which made it less than ideal but early morning is when all these critters are out and about. That flock was awesome – I took about 8 pics even as they flew in the distance … a double V formation and I’ve never seen that before.
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I’ll have to call you “quick draw Mcgraw” from now on!
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I’m flattered … he was quite the sharpshooter and whipped that gun out in seconds like nobody’s business. I really liked that cartoon back in the day.
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me too!
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Woah the goslings are growing so quickly!!
I loved reading your reflective anecdote about peas- gave me a good laugh! They really are a pesky little veggie to eat. Although I gotta say… all this talk about peas now has me craving them, lol!
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Yes, wait ’til you see my pictures I will hopefully use in a post later for the first day of Summer … I just loaded the pics up. Those goslings, the first family, look like the adults and I did a double-take when I saw them gathered by the water. The other three families are much smaller.
Those pesky peas! Other bloggers re saying … try fresh peas and you’ll like them, so maybe now that I am older I’ll do some “adulting” and try peas again. I looked for that spoon to take a picture of it for this post. My father used it for sugar in the sugar bowl for ages and after he was gone, we used it for birdseed for our canaries. I was determined to find that spoon for the post … I probably put it away for safekeeping, which means I’ll never find it. Are you color coding your boxes for easy access after the move? I don’t envy you for living out of boxes before and after … how do you do it all?!
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Awww I cannot believe how quickly they grew!
Ok I am so curious if you’ll have a new fondness for peas! I personally love them with pink Himalayan sea salt and a bit of butter!
That’s so sweet about the spoon- I’m sure you’ll stumble upon it when you least expect it! 🙂 & I cant wait to read that post!
Hehe not color code although that’s a great idea! We just labeled with sharpie. I do have to say i feel a bit “off kilter” with all the chaos… but the adrenaline is keeping me going!
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You need lots of adrenalin to keep going as time is ticking down til the end of the month. Color coding works well even if you just buy a pack of multi-colored manila file folder label stickers. I don’t envy you Mackenzie … you have a lot going on right now. The goslings are growing like weeds. I have not tried to peas since writing this post, but I will next time I go to the grocery store. I had a rather crummy day yesterday. I had longed to go outside for a long walk and my garage door malfunctioned and my car was trapped inside, not to mention that a large spring went wacky and bounced around the garage hitting the car, the ceiling and garage door. I have no words.
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Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry your day was so horrible- that certainly is a few unfortunate events 😦 I hope all is well now & the garage door is back to functioning normally!
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You know what Mackenzie – I thought this was something very unusual and it turns out it is not. I called about taking my car in to have the gouges where the spring landed repaired and found out other people brought their cars in for the same issue. Considering the spring is almost 3 feet ong and 3 feet wide and missed the tail light, I now feel fortunate. The new garage door gets installed tomorrow. He was going to do it today but it was to be a stormy day (tapping my foot … it never rained yet).
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Oh bummer ! Well good thing it’s repairable!!!!
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Yes, garage door installer comes today with a new one and I go to the car shop today – they have a bump shop off site and hopefully it doesn’t take too long to get it back but I want to do it if they can take me and get it over with. They are busy this week/next due to a classic car cruise we have this Saturday and lots of people go in for their classic cars and hot rods … last-minute issues and next week with them overheating. It was not a good time to have it happen but I have nowhere I need to go that necessitates going out in the rain where the area would get wet and rust.
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Did everything go ok with getting the new garage door installer since it’s been a couple days?!
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Yes the garage door install went okay – it looks nice, quite different than before. My car is still at the shop though and it’s already been three days. I hope I get it back tomorrow in case we get one nice day over the weekend. The weather folks have not been accurate in our forecasts for a really long time.
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