Thursday, April 27, 2006

The Goslings

We have a lot of Canadian Geese on campus. And oddly, this causes mixed reactions among folks around here.

On the one hand, it's nice seeing families of geese strolling about, pecking in the grass for food. It also gives our campus a quaint, small town feel when traffic has to stop to let them cross the road.

On the other hand, they are mean. One of our grad students was attacked a few weeks ago by a hissing goose hanging out on the retaining wall of a steeply sloping hill (the sidewalk passes just beneath it). She was on the cell phone talking and heard a funny hissing sound coming through the call. All of a sudden a goose let loose and pecked her right on her head. Another grad student was chased down a hill by a goose gone bad.

But right now, it doesn't matter which side of the goose debate you're on. The goslings have hatched and those fuzzy little birds toddling along side their parents are one of the cutest signs of spring we have around here. The last few mornings, I've walked in surrounded by a chorus of Awwwwwwwww's every time the faculty, staff or students pass by a young family.

It is awfully cute.

5 comments:

Jennifer said...

Welcome to free blogging! I like having you on blogspot 'cause now I can subscribe to your feed and stuff like I couldn't before.

(Also, I can have spaces between the paragraphs in my comments! Do you understand how happy that makes me?)

Blogger does have brain farts on a semi-regular basis but...well, it's free! (And too, you gotta love the Blogger Status board, which tends to have messages like this:

Blogger.com will be down on [date] at [time] due to planned maintenance. Once the issue has been resolved, the offending server will be taken out and shot.)

Anonymous said...

hi there,
I found your old blog through google and I am very interested in the rash/blister you said your son developed.
My boyfriend has the same thing on his arm. He says it is not particularly itchy but he developed more than one blister on top of the rash that has now formed one big blister. It seems to be going away though, and is leaving a purplish scar similar to what you describe your son having.
We are very curious/worried about his condition so any more information you can offer regarding your son's status would be great. And btw, I hope he is doing fine =)

Anonymous said...

the moral of the story is: don't walk around and talk on a cellphone at the same time. what's wrong with people anyway? all other intelligent creatures keep their senses on 'aware' mode. so too bad, so sad.

i guess i have zero sympathy on this.

Anonymous said...

anonymous is me: gabriella.

i've got to figure this out. i have a non existent blog that doesn't recognize my password. sigh.

Anita said...

Jessica--

That sounds so incredibly similar.

The good news is that the blister has gone away and the scar is healing day by day. There was never any discomfort or illness for COnor. We use the mederma daily and it looks like it's healing nicely.

I hope that helps!