The first peeper has begun spring's symphony. It was a solitary soul and a little weak but determined none-the-less. It's sweet note was filled with promise.
On Wednesday, I saw the first robin of Spring! Wednesday was a glorious day here and the kids and I took the opportunity to walk around downtown Toronto while we were there for the charity event.
I love Toronto in the Spring and Summer when the sun is shining and the people come out from the underground and it feels like the city comes to life! Today, it is cold again, but that little glimpse was enough to make me believe that the end is truly in site!
On the down side, I will be digging in my garden this weekend, but not for plants... Travis' gerbil Daisy died last week, and we had a little garden service for her. Emily's gerbil Chewy seems to be close to following her life partner (of course while the kids are out of town!) so I'll be doing my own little burial, with a grave side memorial after the weekend. Last time, we held hands and said a prayer for Daisy and when I finished, both kids were sobbing and Emily laid a little head stone (made of drywall!!). I'm grateful the ground had actually thawed enough to bury her in the garden, otherwise I would have been stuck with a dead gerbil in my freezer!
Another sure sign of Spring in Toronto... the Canada Geese are back in full force and our parking lot is a landmine of goose poop!
Stock up on your Rotten Tomatoes. I HATE GEESE!!! These ones here is South Georgia don't know they are supposed to go home in the summer. The Navy base here provides them with ponds and protection, and they live here year round, poop EVERYWHERE, and think they own the sidewalks. They will attack if they don't think you have proper clearance to be on the sidewalk.
Funniest thing I ever saw though, couple of years ago a First Class walking down the sidewalk in his Whites (summer uniform, solid white from hat to shoes). He didn't see the goose that didnt' think he should be there. Goose comes charging at him and next thing he knows he's crawing away from the thing on his hands and knees.
Nasty little creatures. Did I mention, I HATE GEESE!!
The geese that live near me at the bird sanctuary are back from the south but I doubt they go as far as you KarenGA. I love to hear them overhead and watch as they fly in formation, but if we could figure out how to use goose poop as an energy source, we'd never run out.
There were never any Canada geese at my cottage but about 2 years ago, a flock moved in. Now the beach is so covered in poop, you can't walk on it anymore. Ditto for Toronto beaches, public parks. It's awful. I was dropping Emily off at the Toronto zoo a couple of weeks ago and there were about half a dozen geese sleeping on the road, just expecting cars to go around them! The kids and I were at the beach near our house a couple of years ago, sitting at a picnic table eating a nice lunch. We were swarmed and attacked by Canada geese, who stole the food right out of our hands. We grabbed everything as quickly as we could and had to run away.
Across the street from my house is a large shopping centre with an "accidental" lake in front. The geese moved in there and when they are nesting, you cannot walk on the sidewalk or they will attack you. They walk out in front of traffic on a major roadway, or on the ONLY exit to the shopping and traffic gets backed up, almost causing accidents. The geese aren't so great at taking off, and they do it in front of the busy roadway, so it's not unusual to find a dead goose on the road because it couldn't get high enough fast enough and got hit by a car.
My office is in the middle of a construction zone. The entire area is under development and there are construction vehicles everywhere. A small pond formed across the street, and the geese moved in. Again, the geese keep walking in front of traffic and more than a few have been run over. One day, I was late for work because I had to wait for 36 geese to cross the road!! They walk back and forth between my office building and the pond, and the green space at the office is completely unusable in the spring/summer/fall because the goose poop is overwhelming, and because you're on your guard for attack geese. Even the parking lot is completely covered, no matter how much time the maintenance staff put into cleaning it. It was awful when I was in my cast 2 years ago, I'd have to inspect and clean it every day before I went into my house to make sure I wasn't tracking goose poop everywhere.
Can you sense my frustration? I just hate them, and the population just keeps multiplying.
There are signs and ordinances here now forbidding people to feed the geese. One local park brought in a pair of swans. It's thought that the swans territorial aggression would help drive off the geese. What seems to help the best is the presence and use of dogs. This has been used on a lake side beach which is visible from the road. I never see geese there anymore.
The local golf course has hired two dogs to keep the geese off the course. They are a huge nuisance everywhere and it's time for some sort of cull. Wonder what they taste like? Canada goose as a delicacy? They're big and would feed lots of people....
Here on the base, they try to control the population by injecting the eggs with something to keep them from gestating (right word??). Seems if you just remove the eggs they lay more, but will sit on dead egges forever waiting for them to hatch. Just makes the geese meaner though, as they protect those eggs at human peril. NOTHING worse than an attack goose.
Maybe we should replace roadkill with roast goose!!
I've heard talk here of "oiling" the eggs so that they don't hatch, but I don't know much about it and as far as I know, no one is doing it. There is only one pair across the road from the office now, but more will come....
What's unfortunate is that all the geese will come but that land is scheduled for development, the whole area is. It's too bad the developers don't just drain the pond that's been created so that they get forced away before they start laying eggs. Last year, there must have been about 50 of them once their second round of eggs hatched. It was awful, a great big poopy mess!
They regularly 'shake' the geese eggs from those that nest in Stanley Park, the big park in Vancouver. As KarenGA said, if they take the eggs, the geese just lay more. It reduces the poplulation but it's a bandaid at best.
What a mess about the geese, and they are MEAN! I got bit by one many years ago and have stayed clear of them ever since. THankfully, we don't have a lot down here.
Thanks Light. Chewy actually didn't pass until last night. I got home from work to find her on her back, feet in the air. Emily came down to check and found that she was still breathing so she took her and held her and stroked her until she took her last breath. Then we buried her in the flower bed next to her sister. Not so many tears this time because this passing was not unexpected.
It never ceases to amaze me how compassionate my daughter can be some times. Travis took the last gerbil's death harder because she was actually his gerbil. Now we're taking a little breather from small animals.
