Honk Honk! You silly goose!

I might have shared this story before.
But I'm going to share again, just in case :p

When I was in High School, I worked for a summer job program in the state of Iowa. It was a pretty cherry deal. 40 hours of work, at minimum wage, but because I was under 18, I didn't have to pay any taxes. This is pretty good cash if you're 16 years old. I worked washing laundry in a care facility, which is kind of like a nursing home, but not exactly. It was a pretty interesting job, and many days of my summer I got to spend outside hanging a million sheets on the line. At the time I hated it, but now I long for warm days that I can hang our sheets outside.

sigh.

Our area had a regional coordinator, and at least once during the summer, she would find something related to the career field you wanted to go into and you'd job shadow one day.

I wanted to do something in the art field - so she set me up with a flower shop. It's a jump, but I can see how she made it. Keep in mind, this is Iowa, which is not known as being the mecca of artistic minds. Also, forget the fact that at the time my mom was a painter, and I saw that every day. It wasn't all that glamorous.

Anyway, we're in her car, on the way to the flower shop when she drops a bomb on me.

She'd lived in Iowa over 15 years and had never ever seen a deer.

I wanted to immediately open the door and jump out doing 55 because I was obviously in the car with a psychotic nut job. Who lives in Iowa and doesn't see a deer before their 2 week "birthday"? I think I said something to the effect of "Do you ever turn your head to the left or right?"

So the rest of the trip, I hyperfocused on finding a deer so I could point it out at her, and laugh at her. No luck tho.

So you might laugh when I tell you that 20 years later, I confessed my own "thing" to my mom and sister.

I live in Missouri, and had never seen a wild turkey.
Ever.

Mom obviously wanted to open the door and push me out, because she was apparently riding in a car with a psychotic nutjob. "Do you ever turn your head to the left or right?"

Good try mom, I'm younger, faster and stronger. Plus I make a cute pouting face. She was tuck with me. Mom then instructed Torrie to find me a turkey... which she did.... not.

Then literally, several YEARS later, we're driving along and I see some black blobs in a harvested corn field. wth? Oh wait, that was a turkey!! yay... apparently I was not a moron after all! (shudup)

So now I've turned into a turkey spotting machine. When in the car, if you think I'm looking out the window, deep in thought contemplating life and the universe. It's not so, I'm really looking for turkeys.

Which really gets me to the point of this post. Something else I've never seen....

Ever.

Not once......



I've never seen geese actually flying south.



What I've noticed about geese, and maybe it's where I'm located, but I never actually see them flying south. I mostly see them flying "around", and it's not just in the fall, it's all winter long. North, east, west, all the time, all winter long. Whether it be November or March, they are flying "around".

I've even seen one batch flying north, and another batch flying east and they "bump into" each other right over our back yard. Much chaos insued. There was a lot of distressed honking, and I'm not sure ever everyone kept sorted with their respective groups.

I imagined some conversations going like this:
"Watch where you're going!"
"You're going the wrong direction moron!"
"Hey nice rack."

Finally each group headed off in their own "directions".

There is a lot of activity lately, and a lot more flying back "north". Which I don't know why because it's definitely not anything close to "warm" yet.

If I were a goose, I would set up camp in Cabo and just be done with it. That's why God made text messaging and opposable thumbs - so I can keep in touch with my friends and family.

However, I saw something really crazy last week, it made me literally do a big laugh out loud belly laugh.

Here we were sure we'd met spring. You can hear a collective sigh from everyone, even the earthworms. But like most springs in Missouri, there's always a little surprise, and we had a day of snow. Approximately a full inch fell, which was a drop in the bucket compared to the winter we had, but it was still a shock, and an annoyance, and not just to me.

Finally, in the middle of a snow storm in March...
I saw a flock of geese flying *south*

I have a feeling they were a little shocked and disappointed at the weather too. I also imagine the conversation went something like this, "Gee FRANK, that's the last time we're going to let YOU lead. You dragged us ALL the way back to Missouri, to find a snow storm. You know we go SOUTH(ish) for a reason right? I'm going to Cabo, who's with me!?"