We parked in front of this nasty, dirty body of water, and lo and behold, a geese pond occupied her mind for nearly an hour and I just kept thanking God that my mom had A) subscribed to that “Ranger Rick” magazine for me all those years; and B) that we had actually had geese for a short stint on the ranch at Mullen. Otherwise, I was pretty sure I had totally missed the “poultry” unit they taught in Animal Science 101that was offered at Colby Community College!
Kat had 101 questions, and well, being the older, wiser “big sis” that I am, I had 101 answers! I just hope she doesn’t ever compete in an academic bowl and claim that I imparted this knowledge on her! YIKES!! I felt pretty comfortable with the basics though, like the daddy geese (males) are ganders and the babies are goslings and a group of them are a gaggle. Then we got into feather features. Well of course they need feathers to fly and swim and as a defense mechanism and for heating themselves in the winter, but I might have stretched it a little when I said the feathers are even used for cooling devices as they fan themselves in the summer (seemed logical to me and she bought into it)! Kat was concerned when the geese kept ducking their heads into the water and then shaking their heads. I equated that to washing our hair, and then when a feather was falling out, I explained the whole shedding process. WOW!!! All these answers while I’m surrounded by some of the things I fear and dislike most—birds (I’m afraid they’ll attack me) and bird poop is just plain nasty--give me cow ____ any day! But, it was an hour of outside fresh air and togetherness.
Finally, Kat proclaimed she was hungry, and we loaded up to find dinner. My only limitation was NO McDonalds! (I should have bought stock when she and I were matched). So, we had KFC. . .It only seemed logical.
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