The Dirt Field

For Mother’s Day yesterday, I’d originally planned to take my mother for a drive in the countryside, followed by a picnic and a hike. After all, nothing says “Thanks for giving me life and raising me for over twenty years!” like a few hours in the car and a case of poison ivy. However, I awoke yesterday morning to discover that it was not only cool and windy, but also that my allergies were so bad that relief only came in the form of scrubbing my eyeballs with sandpaper. This forced us to rethink our plans and, not surprisingly, we ended up in a restaurant sipping cocktails through the afternoon.

[I just noticed that almost all of my stories end with some variation of “…and then I started drinking.” Which is really fine by me, except when I’m telling stories about client meetings or things that happened in the early morning. Those should always end with “…and then I started drinking AND crying.”]

After a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in Old Town, my mother and I decided to go for an evening walk to a nearby creek to visit some baby geese I’d seen while running last week. When we got to the place where the geese had been, they were nowhere to be found, so in the spirit of honoring my love for my mother, I made her follow me through dense, thorny underbrush while we searched for the birds. In truth, she actually impressed me by surging ahead on her own with minimal encouragement. I think she was probably just hoping to lose me in the woods; I don’t blame her.

We finally came upon the whole family of geese at the place where the creek culminated in a pond. There were roughly six adult geese and ten baby geese, and the babies were quite possibly the cutest things I’ve ever seen. They ran around in little groups, making “Peep! Peep! Peep!” noises, and I wanted nothing more than to nuzzle my nose into their downy feathers and tickle their stumpy wings while they pecked at my face with their little beaks. The adults, however, were very cautious about letting us get near the little ones, and I had absolutely no doubt that if I tried to smuggle a gosling home in my pocket, I would be pecked to death by an angry, hissing goose. Also, I realized that celebrating Mother’s Day by stealing someone else’s baby is just wrong.

I am going to go back there today and try to take some pictures of the adorable babies that I can post here, so that you too can enjoy the splendor of baby geese. And seeing as how today is NOT Mother’s Day…well, enough said.