navigating past the goose

ok, this is probably quite a weak submission for the February writing contest about “Navigation” from Tillerman at Proper Course, but after Carol Anne posted about begonias and a rooster, and bonnie at Frogma added that sausage and batturay is a crime, I figured this oddity wasn’t too far off.

last Sunday, I dropped my 2 older boys at my parents house to spend a few days with Opa & Oma (for us, Opa = grandfather, not “oops”, Joe) during their mid-winter school break.  we socialized for a short time, but another February snowstorm was fast approaching, so we wanted to get on the road back home to avoid the heavy snowfall and forecast of a 1/2″ of ice.  the drive home was pretty slow in the sloppy snow, and took twice as long as usual.

but, probably the most difficult part of the drive home was navigating our SUV down my parent’s driveway and avoid running over my sister’s crazy goose.

the goose is allowed to wander freely around my parents yard, and can be a little protective, but is usually willing to let you walk up and pet her.  now that she doesn’t chase the younger kids around the yard, she’s not too bad.  here she is being fed dandelion leaves by my youngest son a summer or two back:

but on Sunday, for some reason, the silly goose walked, and walked quickly, right along side the driver’s side door as I tried to back down the long driveway.

I stopped, she stopped.

I started backing up again, she kept walking along right beside me.

I was afraid she would get caught under the wheel, but she somehow managed to stay close enough to freak me out, but not close enough to get hurt.

I opened the door and hollered at her.  she just honked back at me.

I finally was able to build up enough speed to back into the turn-around at the barn, and was able to drive forward faster down the rest of the driveway, and begin the slow trek home through the snowstorm, sans goose.

then, strangely enough, I got an email with a video from my brother-in-law this morning.  apparently, I am not the only one having difficulty navigating past the goose.

[note: the goose was not run over, and was not harmed in the making of this video.]