Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Observations

On my lunchtime walk today, I...
  • Found a new "trail". I've lived in this area for over two decades, and traveled the roads on a regular basis. There's a difference, though, between seeing things from the driver's seat and seeing them on foot. As I was walking on the sidewalk along Manchester Road, I saw a street sign I'd never seen before. It indicated the asphalt path next to it was "Vlasis Trail". Intrigued, I followed the trail, which turned out to be a cut-though to Vlasis Park, my starting location. I decided that the trail would be a great way to get to the strip mall across Manchester...if you didn't mind taking your life in your hands as you crossed!
  • Stared down a Canadian goose that acted aggressively as I walked by. Because part of my route passed by a lake, I saw several types of waterfowl, but Canadian Geese predominated. There were about a dozen geese hanging out in the grass next to the sidewalk, with one particularly close. My path took me to within three feet of him. He fluffed out his wings a bit, opened his mouth, stuck out his pink tongue, and hissed at me. It was very intimidating; I didn't realize just how big geese could be! My first thought was to move to the other side of the street, but instead I looked the goose in the eye and kept moving quickly. Once I got past, I turned around to look, and he was settling back down.

  • Saw an incredible water feature in a back yard. After I recovered from my encounter with the goose, I started observing the houses that backed up to the park. One of them had a dry creek bed which started up by the house, then followed the gently-sloping yard down to the far corner where it emptied into a pond. The only water today was in the basin part; I wondered if the whole thing turned into a circulating system in warm weather, but I couldn't figure it out. The yard also contained a brick patio next to the pond with a grill and fire pit. The people who lived there had obviously put a lot of work into their yard.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a very adventerous day!

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  2. Don't worry about the Canadian Geese - they are all bark, no bite. They love getting themselves all puffed up and hissing, but rarely do they do anything about it. I'm always amazed that Canadian Geese are everywhere...

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  3. At my former job, there were ponds on campus and, of course, Canada geese. They are big, and can be intimidating, but I agree with Sydney that they rarely act. They are still wild animals, though, and thus are unpredictable. Foolish fellow employees would occasionally try to do things like take a picture of their kids with a goose - and that's just asking for trouble.

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  4. Maybe that goose was protecting young or a nest.

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