Uninvited guests

The Canadian geese are back. They were here well into the snowy season and then disappeared -- presumably to more southerly foraging grounds. Then they came back for only a month or so early in the spring. And disappeared again. -- North, even to Canada? I don't know. The crows took over the morning wake up duties, we seem to have feuding congregations of them -- congregations do, of course feud fiercely sometimes. The crows certainly strut about like righteous parsons in their clerical feathers. They had stayed all winter, in fact, but must have been proselytizing because their numbers grew. Some mornings they seemed to be preaching about hell fire and damnation, usually from tree tops but sometimes from the lawn or parking lot.

The last few weeks the geese have returned, at first just a few and just for a couple of hours in the morning. Then more and more, they look, but do not sound like Quakers in their gray garb. Now their 5:15a.m.honking tells me the clock radio will soon come on. They have breakfast on the lawn by this side of the apartment complex. Nobody likes their leavings in the grass. Joe, the handyman sympathizes. This morning I had just had breakfast and was checking my email when I heard a motor -- Joe, on the little green John Deere, was herding geese off the lawn, riding like a determined cowboy -- I listened for a "get along, Little Goosies" but he played the strong silent type in a baseball cap instead of a stetson. I'll be curious if they are back tomorrow morning ... somehow, I think they will.