The geese on the farm made a lot of ruckus. Waking me up on summer mornings with their banter when we had the windows open because they loved waddling around below our bedroom honking about. It was one of the many noises I got used to on the farm like the long croaks of the bull-frogs at night, the peeper’s, and the baby turkey or poults in the barn that sounded like a million peeps.

When they had goslings there was one that stood out and we noticed it was always being left behind by it’s mother and other goslings. This gosling was all white and the others were grey and white. Our neighbors feeling bad for the goose decided they should take it in and nurture it. So we left it at that, problem solved right?  The only problem was as the goose or “Goosey” grew up he had to be put outside, so he was rejected again. Not only that now  he was reminded on the daily of the other geese who rejected him and they would swim by together and continued to leave Goosey out. He had no real home. The only problem was as the goose or “Goosey” grew up we all noticed he had a tendency to attack people.

One fall morning my sister and I were outside in our yard raking leaves when we all of a sudden noticed that Goosey was on his way over. He looked friendly at first so we kind of just watched him come over. He started pecking at my sisters Suze’s shoe lace which we thought was kind of cute. Then without skipping a beat Goosey had latched himself onto my sisters laces and wouldn’t let go. Then as she realized what was happening she shook him off but he only kept attacking. She began running and Goosey tailed right behind and flew a few feet off the ground so as she ran he could bite her in the bottom with his beak. Suze was kicking her feet up as high as she could to kick him off but he stayed on. I didn’t know what to do so I watched as she dealt with this insane situation. He gave up after she kept running like this for about two or three minutes and he got tired of being kicked.

Another night when my neighbors invited us over to play volley ball a similar scenario went down. This time Goosey wandered gingerly over no one trusted him but we also were all curious to see what he would do next. Our neighbor Josh was the one to get the ball that landed near Goosey. He was close to Goosey because he helped raise him so he was fearless as Goosey playfully bit at his shoestring but once again Josh all of a sudden found himself being chased by a goose and he was not the same goose he remembered. He ran down near the pond with Goosey biting him on the behind and flying behind as he ran just like he had my sister.

One day he crossed the line when he attacked a customer’s kid. My Dad was showing the customers around the farm and they were interested in feeding the geese. Apparently Goosey wandered over and my Dad knew Goosey’s tactics so he attempted to intervene when Goosey came over. He ended up playing tug of war with the customer’s son and Goosey and worst of all Goosey was trying to pull the kid into the pond. After that I never saw Goosey again. My Dad told us he took him to the Petting Zoo but we knew that Goosey wouldn’t last long there.