THE GEESE AND THE DUCK.

There is a large pond at the entrance to my neighborhood. It's called Emerald Lake, but it's not a lake. it is, well, a large pond. In the center of this pond/lake, there is a fountain. We who live here are very proud of this fountain because we took up a collection and paid for it ourselves, tho it is maintained by the city.



Living on Emerald Lake is a gaggle of geese. These are gorgeous geese and we love them..EXCEPT their waste clogs up our fountain which, in turn, allows the entire large pond to turn into a murky, stinky swamp. More on this later, however.

This is my real story; in this gaggle of gorgeous, huge geese, abides a duck. One lone duck who has lived with these geese for as long as I've been in this neighborhood. I do not know if he knows he's a duck, or if the geese do either, but I suspect he just doesn't give a crap. He's happy. And the other fowl seems to totally accept him. If you double click on the photos above, you can get a really good look at the geese and the duck and see for yourself how well they live together.


Back to the bird excrement that causes our showcase pond to pollute; somebody decided we could solve the problem by gathering up the birds (these are large birds; i dont know how they went about catching them and loading them on to a vehicle.) and hauling them to the outskirts of town, hoping they would establish themselves in a pond located there. No such luck; they flew back. All of them, including the duck.

I admire this guy. He swims and eats and walks around the lake with nary a care in the world about standing out as being different. The geese seem to live amicably with him. They live and let live despite the difference.

We could take a lesson from these geese, and their friend, the duck.