Thursday, September 10, 2009

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.

7 comments:

  1. I came by of Candy's blog and this reminds me of the ugly duckling story when i was a kid.. LOL. Cute all the same. Thanks for sharing. Tweety in Green Bay WI..

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  2. Thank you for stopping by! I'm glad you liked it.

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  3. I was also reminded of the ugly duckling story, but also about recent squabbles at CR. Vive la difference! Nice story Beej.

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  4. Thanks Sheila, and I was thinking of CR when I wrote this.

    Vive la difference is sooooo right.

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  5. Aw Beej, this is so sweet.

    :)

    I bet the sounds they make are full of variety. I bet the geese sound like one sound of singing and the duck has a slightly different sound. They probably have slightly different vocals and how they make their noises have just a different ring and vibration that sensitive ears can discern.

    You know what?

    When one voice is made mute it means all voices are vulnerable to being made mute. Whose voice is next? Might not seem so at first but if we think we can curb one song that means all songs are at risk.

    Quack!!

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Go ahead, you can do it! Just whistle if you want me. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and BLOW....

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