Saving Geese from Human Aesthetic Indifference June 7. 2005


Saint Joseph's College Campus has a beautiful fountain that is the delight of many human and non-human alike. Every year geese stop by the fountain on their way South and sometimes back North. Well this year a wonderful surprise arrived!
fred (that's what he told me his name was) was born some time this spring and has been enjoying the lush grass and clover surrounding the fountain with his family. I ride my bike past them in the mornings when I come into work and it's such a joy to see them. To my surprise, recently fred (he likes his name in lowercase) has been in the fountain's water. This really isn't a surprise--he is a goose.

I decided to have lunch out by the fountain today and noticed a problem with the "fred in the fountain" scene. fred couldn't get out of the water!
What's worse is there is no real food in the fountain water and the gold fish tend to nip at one's feet when they are dangling in the water. fred and the family comes right up to me when I am around (I don't give them food). So, I decided to lift fred out of the water and onto dry land.
Well, mom and dad didn't like that--fred did!
I left and came back after work. Oh fred! He was back in the water again. Stuck all over again because the fountain really isn't a lake with soft banks for him to walk easily in and out. All fred has is a stark lifeless concrete wall spelling doom for him and starving him to death in a pool of tranquility. I had to figure out how to allow fred to use the fountain water AND get out when he was hungry. I first tried looking around for a long branch that had fallen from a tree after our tornado was around that I could stick in and allow fred to sort of have a bridge from the water to the land. No luck. The grounds had just been cleaned by the lawn crew so there was nothing useful around. I put my thinking cap on again and came up with a "stair" solution.
Now, usually mom and dad are very interested in me when I come around and they get close but never take their eyes off me for fear I may injure their child. Well the strangest thing happened when I came out with my goose stair.Mom and dad ignored me and let me teach fred how to use the stair. fred took about 15 minutes to figure out how to walk on the stairs but he eventually managed. And now the family is reunited and everyone is happy and no longer starving.


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David  Tuesday, June 7. 2005 @ 17:32
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Wow, you're like a gosling hero or something.
#1 Luke (Homepage) on 2005-06-08 17:55 (Reply)
Remember that time when you saved all those geese from getting run over on Interstate 65? That was crazy!
#2 Maura (Homepage) on 2005-06-13 10:17 (Reply)
I do remember!

So Maura and I were driving up to Merrillville to go shopping for some new clothes. I'm going to NYC for a presbyterian retreat and I needed some summer clothes that looked good. We are driving along having a good time listening to an On The Go playlist Maura created when all of the sudden like a mile before the Merrillville exit a mother goose and a gaggle of goslings were trying to cross I-65 (why you might ask... ;-) well there was a lake on the other side) The problems were many. To name just two... One the high speed cars flying down the road and two the median that the goslings would have never been able to jump over. Fortunately I was the first car to encounter the geese and I quickly used the car and the horn to save the geese and send them back from where they were walking.

I saved the geese! Again!!! Crazy!!!!!
#2.1 David (Homepage) on 2005-06-13 10:32 (Reply)
Unless, of course, your horn blowing unaccompanied by the bloody mangling of at least one of the geese served to essentially domesticate those geese, making them tolerant of the loud highway, and ultimately enabling them to more confidently waddle across said highway, until their unfortunate encounter with that tired old truck driver about 2 hours behind you.
#3 Justin (Homepage) on 2005-06-13 12:16 (Reply)
What a great story and fun pictures! I have geese all over my apartment complex, but they all seem to know how to maneuver just fine. No chance of heroism for me.
#4 Frema (Homepage) on 2005-06-14 13:49 (Reply)

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