When Chores Are Pleasures

There's a little spot of yard behind my garage that I named Gooseport, PA several years ago because of the two male Canada geese who used to live there all year long. The one I called Broken Wing was killed earlier this year by some kind of nocturnal predator and I only have one goose left now. His name is Big Mouth. But we call him "Mayor" now, the Mayor of Gooseport, PA.

Mayor (see pic) is eight years old and shares the summer pond with several ducks and a two-year-old female Canada goose I named Dipper (because she’s always dipping upside down in the water for food, more than the other goose, it seems). She left for parts unknown a week ago before I had a chance to snap her picture.

I feed Mayor cracked corn every day, white bread about twice a week and lawn grass, which I pick and put in an old Clementine box, about once a week also. His favorite meal is Italian bread without the crust.

Mayor paces impatiently at the gate when he hears me remove the metal lid from the corn barrel in the garage. Sometimes he almost pushes me out of the way as I fill the trough. But not lately. He misses both Broken-Wing and Dipper. I hope Dipper comes back before fall.

One of my morning chores is to trudge to the garage for cracked corn for Mayor and birdseed for the many wrens, sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, black birds, etc. who know that, regardless of the weather, they’ll have fresh feed here to start the day.

Around this house animals are not referred to as “this” or “that” but as “who” and “whom”. And feeding them each morning never was much of a chore. In fact, it’s one of life’s little pleasures.