Kelly Gibbons, artist and writer, about me

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Duck, Duck, Goose!

In Spain you run with the bulls. In Pennsylvania I run with the geese. I've run with them for weeks without incident. Today was a little different.

I run at a small recreation park that has a soccer and baseball field. It is surrounded by a gravel track and it sits next to a pond. Their are about thirty wild geese that inhabit the pond. They also like to use the soccer field.

Usually when I arrive the geese are sitting in the center of the soccer field. The mama ducks with their babies usually kept a great distance from me and most of the time they would run away at the sight of me. The rest of the flock will make some noise when I start running, and sometimes they become alarmed by my presence and one of them will start the warning honk. This usually ends with most of them flying away to the pond. Usually though they sit on the field and if I get too close they all get up together and start waddling away. As soon as I go past they go right back to where they were.

I laugh at this because I guess they don't think I'll make it back around--hey I don't blame them, for awhile there I had my doubts too.

Today, when I arrived every duck was on the field. The mamas and the babies were there too. We had some rain over the last two days, and a thunder shower a few hours before I ran, so the track had some areas that were under water. The geese were hanging out by the big puddles.

The first few times I ran around, the ducks did their usually waddle away come back routine. But, then the babies started to swim in the puddles. I know how mamas are about their babies, so instead of bothering them, I ran on the outside of the track around a bunch of picnic tables set up on the side.

One mama duck really didn't care how courteous I was trying to be. She started hisses at me and getting a little too close for comfort and I started to get a little scared. I was close enough to see she had teeth and I wasn't about to find out if they would hurt. My heart was already pounding from the running, these geese really didn't need to help me out in the aerobic department.

After I got past the killer attack goose, I picked up a rock. I only planned on using it if I really had too. As I ran the next lap I plotted my plan of attack. If the duck actually came at me I throw the rock at it to scare it off, or maybe I would throw it as I approached to scare it away before there was a problem. Then I started thinking about an alternate plan.

Last time I ran past I thought maybe I got of the track to early and didn't make enough noise for the geese to hear me. So, as I started to approach I started kicking the rocks and making more noise. "Comin' through geese. Here I am. Get moving." Yes, I was saying it out loud. Thankfully no humans were close by.

All this did was attract their attention, and this time there were more babies in the puddle. I started around the picnic tables again, but Mother Goose was watching every move I made. Then was some serious fear in my eyes.

The goose started hisses again. I clutched my rock and started to run faster. I'll use this if I have to you angry beast! I kept running and the goose kept hissing, but I managed to escape again.

I started thinking maybe I should get out of there, run for the car and not come back, but being the dedicated runner that I am I kept going. To my delight, as I approached the third time, the geese were walking away. Yes, freedom, thank you very much. It's hard enough trying to run with the wildlife giving you grief too.

I finished my run and headed to the car thinking I had one. I looked fear in the eye and I came out victorious. Those geese were no match for me. Guess who was camped out at my van? You got it, the man eating, killer attack goose and her friends.

My heart started pounding. I started walking real slow. Our eyes met. Now what am I going to do. Before the goose knew what was coming, I ran for the car--thank God I left it unlocked. Safe at last. Honk if you feel stupid! I honked the horn all the way home.

posted by Kelly @ 5/26/2004 12:27:00 PM

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