Saturday, September 30, 2006

Silver Lake

This park is in the center of Rochester, just a few blocks from our house. We do not live in a fancy house or neighborhood, but I am a neighborhood snob anyway -- we are centrally located, close to everything, and in between a nature preserve and this lovely park with walking and biking trails and its own flock of Giant Canada Geese*, who live here year round as a result of the warm water discharge from the nearby power plant that keeps the river open. (It's just called Silver Lake, it's really the Zumbro River. details, details).

Spencer has been anxious to come here to feed the geese for several weeks and today we finally made it -- stopped at the Feed Store and paid $6.50 for a 50 lb. bag of feed corn, brought it home, then brought a gallon bucket to the park. We can feed them all winter on this bag -- fun for the kids, cheap for us, good for the geese. Everybody wins.





*I feel compelled to point out that they are Giant Canada Geese (which is different from plain old Canada Geese) and COMPLETELY different from Canadian Geese, which may exist if geese can claim a nationality or proclaim allegiance to a country, but which are not a species. In other words, don't tell people you saw Canadian Geese. Ever. You didn't. They are Canada Geese, and those of us who know better are either embarrassed for you at your ignorance or annoyed with you. (Guess which one I am? LOL)

8 comments:

  1. And they seem like such nice geese. The ones I see around here are so aggressive!
    Maybe our geese are snooty Almaden types.

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  2. Canada geese in California are a scourge. Maybe they behave better in Minnesota. Do you remember a few years back when they had to close Almaden Lake because people were getting bacterial infections after swimming there? Because of the geese.

    I've heard some parks hire dogs to chase them off.

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  3. Anonymous9:15 AM

    Garrett looks entirely too big in this picture - I can't believe they all have grown up sooooo fast! Anyway, looks like all had fun - all those birds around me would be SUCH A BIG NO-N0 in my world! Love, Mom

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  4. I deffinitely belong in the camp that can't tell the difference between Canadian Geese and Giant Canada Geese. The ones here (guess they are Canadian Geese) are way too agressive, I won't dare to feed them, or let Henry feed them even if it's allowed. We used to feed ducks in Vasona before it was banned.

    Great pictures! Looks like it's still pretty warm in MN. we just had our first cold spell in sunny California.

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  5. I don't care what country they belong to, I just wish they would stop leaving their calling cards on everything.

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  6. It's ok...we're not all that impressed with them in Canada either!

    Great pictures though!

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  7. Anonymous10:25 PM

    The Canadian thing always gets my SIL (the zoologist one) too. When Canada Geese are born in Ontario, they are Canadian.

    While we're at it...snakes and spiders are only poisonous if you get sick when you eat them, if you die when they bite you it's because they are venomous. It's really poyn-set-ee-ah (4 syllables) not point-set-uh. Notice there is no "t" in there after the "n" in poinsettia so don't say it. Numbers in over 100 do not have an "and" in the middle (one hundred sixty five, not one hundred AND sixty five) because the and refers to the decimal point, as in "five dollars AND thirty three cents."

    The Silver Lake geese can be dang agressive if they are hungry. We stopped to feed them some bread one day and I seriously thought they were going to carry little miss off with them! And I'm with Teresa...don't like the poo.

    Great pics though!!

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