The Honk of the Wild...

I spent some time weeding flower beds again. Friday, May 25th, I hurried outside while the air was still a little cooler to weed the beds on the hill.

I was side-tracked by the fact there was a bit of shade from the trees on the hill up the back yard and covering the beds we used to use for garden plots. I proceeded to weed them first. There are three of them in total.

Then I headed down to the flower beds on the hill. Once again I was side-tracked by the tier Claude made when we first moved here and put a concrete bench on it. There was something growing there that was tall and made like a thistle except it had yellow flowers on the top. Maybe it is some strange crossover between a thistle and a yellow daisy. I found myself weeding this tier next.

Then I headed down to the flower beds on the hill and made it there this time.

Now, as steep as the hill is you must pause every now and then to rest. When I do, I am always struck by the sheer beauty of the place where we live. The creek runs down slowly along the flat and the hill going up the other side. The opposite hill in the summer is full of all kinds of trees each in its own shade of green. The birds chatter in the trees above me as I work. And there is often a lovely little breeze the cools that sweat pouring off my brow. It is just peaceful, beautiful and makes life feel right.

This Friday though as I paused for a bit of respite, I heard that lovely honking of geese. You see, there is a family of geese that nest along our creek every summer. I saw their babies a few weeks ago. This time several pairs and several babies were actually at the bottom of the hill on the flat in the grass. I had not seen them because they were behind Zachary's play set (our next door neighbor's son). They must have realized I was there when I started singing my new favorite song as I worked. I realized they were there and they knew I was there by a honking sound.

I tried to talk gently to them. As a child I had several comic books with princess tales in them. In some of them the poor girl who lived in the woods would talk to the animals and they were not afraid of her because of her goodness. Alas, I'm still sure if I'm calm enough and speak gently enough the animals will not be afraid of me. So, I tried my best goose whisperer voice and they honked back.

Pretty soon the mothers had the babies in the creek and were swimming away in a line. Meanwhile that male goose was doing a steady honk. It wasn't a frightened honk. But it was consistently the same sound. I listened and in the distance I could hear another good honk back at him. It was not an echo. It was another goose. It truly seemed as if they were at either end of their territory and they were the guards stating all was well but there was a human in the vicinity still. I think, for just a minute, I understood how the scientist who study animal behavior could sit and listen for long hours at the time to try and determine what the animals were saying. It was just fascinating.

Eventually I went back to my weeding, the geese all swam down the creek, and I started to sing my new favorite song while I worked. It was a good morning and I enjoyed my four hours of weeding.