As I have said before, one of the big plusses to living in Oregon is the abundant amount of wildlife you see everyday. Especially living outside the major metropolis of Grants Pass, our semi-rural environment offers plenty of interaction with deer, wild turkeys, raccoons, and squirrels galore - it seems as if Oregon has them all.
Every morning and evening brings plenty of deer to the front and back yards. Majestic and shy at the same time, their appearances have become so commonplace that our dogs barely acknowledge their existence anymore. Mornings also bring the gobbling sounds of turkeys frequently crossing the road in front of our house - inevitably bringing to mind more than once the eternal question "Why did the turkey cross the road?"
While some people have nightly rituals consisting of walking the dog, reading to their children or brushing their teeth before bedtime, our own nocturnal routine includes repeated trips to the back door to frighten away the family of racoons attempting to raid the food set out for the outdoor cats. Sitting inside nearby and reading each night, you hear the raccoons creep closer and the move the cats' bowl as they happily nibble away. Despite our repeated "shooings", the mother and three kits keep coming back - several times each night. They have even developed a routine that includes the mother standing guard and sometimes staring us down through the screen door, while the kits alternate their snatch and runs.
Admittedly, not all of the local wildlife has fared so well. Where once squirrels gathered freely and chattered loudly in our backyard, there is now an eerie silence. It seems that our hounds - and I use the term loosely - have taken to chasing the little nut-grubbers to other, more distant environs. Their morning stalking and chases were the stuff of legend, frequently culminating with one or more dogs halfway up the nearest tree, a hair's breadth behind the barely-faster squirrel.
Of all God's creatures that surround us on a daily basis, perhaps the most beautiful . . . and most annoying, are the wild geese. Wonderous to look at, their beauty belies their seemingly unlimited ability to honk loudly - twenty-four hours a day. Of course, the content of their honking is unknown to us as humans, but I'll bet it puts a real strain on that "we mate for life" thing.
In addition to the unrelenting noise, their choice of residence can be trying as well. Not limiting themselves to the pond in the field next to us, it seems the geese are everywhere. Both of the local public schools have huge numbers of them literally "occupying" their campuses. Walking or flying anywhere and everywhere they wish, their "leavings" - to be polite - have everyone watching their step. While I don't mind stepping carefully on the sidewalks into the school when I visit, I do worry about the students who play football or baseball. Because the fields are the favorite gathering places for the local flocks, their "accumulations" bring new meaning - and texture - to a player slipping a tackle or making a sliding catch . . .
Noisy or slippery, there can be no denying that these particular local geese are enjoyable to watch. Lately, they have started to develop some interesting new habits. While any regular goose can fly and land with an innate sense of grace and grandeur, our geese have decided to practice these qualities by landing not on the pond or nearby fields, but on the peaked roof of a local barn - oftentimes with little of the grace and almost none of the grandeur.
Sitting outside on our patio, we have enjoyed observing this avian transformation from pond dweller to barn sitter over the past few weeks. At first, it seemed as though the "great leap up" was limited to one or two misguided individuals. Early attempts often culminated in a sort of slow motion slip and slide sequence - reminiscent of similar scenes in the Walt Disney animal documentaries commonplace during our youth - again, with little grace and grandeur, but plenty of blustering as the intrepid pioneers fell noisily back to earth.
However, after days and weeks of practice, some stiff supporting winds, and a little simple learning from prior experiences, the nearby barn is now as crowded as the trail to Mount Everest on a sunny spring day. While being on a roof certainly provides a better vantage point for viewing the surrounding area, I'm not sure what the real advantage may be for the growing number of roof dwellers. Certainly from the human perspective, the noise of their honking now carries farther . . .
Darwinian evolution or not, the geese are starting to scare us . . . From the single barn in the meadow, they are now creeping steadily to other roofs nearby. What's next? Hanging from trees? Tippie Hendren's frozen-faced scream? What if they decide to move inside? I'll tell you this, if they start to use hand tools or spark a fire, we're out of here, slipping and sliding all the way . . .
