Feeding the Geese

duckformail2
Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Late this morning I discovered a sack of stale bread on top of my fridge. Last week after hauling my groceries home, I realized I had somehow managed to pick a sack of bread that had split open and was stale on one complete side. I threw it on top of the fridge (where I can't really see it) and forgot about it until this morning. Sarah and I decided to take it to the zoo and feed the crumbs to the ducks and geese.

We have a free zoo. It's small and wonderful. This morning there were hundreds and hundreds of geese and ducks on the ponds throughout the zoo. Although most of the birds are will fly south for the winter, they know, innately, I guess, that they are completely safe at the zoo. Perhaps they can tell because people bring them free lunch in bread sacks all day long. It's amazing they don't get so fat they can't fly at all. The geese will come right up to you and eat bread or corn out of your hand, or, if you prefer, you can toss the bread into the water or in front of you and they will race and chase to gobble it up, honking ferociously.

I have always loved poultry. I used to have my own ducks who followed me around the yard as I practiced French horn. I have never minded massive quanitities of organic duck waste or feathers strewn about. At the zoo, I sat right down and had a great time. So did Sarah. She found she was much more successful at feeding geese bread than trying to feed the squirrels in the park acorns.

We left the park for home, smelling bad, with suspicious, quite smelly green goo on our shoes and jeans, nothing the washing machine won't take care of.