The Triumphant Return of the Weathergeese

After what seemed like a never-ending blast of winter, spring finally peaked her warm, welcoming head out from under the snow this weekend. The sun shone through, melting away layers of snow and ice.


Joey and I spent a good portion of Saturday and Sunday strolling down random streets. Lila frolicked in the fields. Life was good.


Cut to Monday morning. After begrudingly readying myself for work, I leashed Lila.  We stepped outside. The wind blew its sharp icy breath and in the distance I saw ....


THE WEATHERGEESE!  (If you have no idea what weathergeese are, read this first.)

"WHAT?" I asked, shouting at no one in particular. "You aren't supposed to be back." I said to the geese, oblivious to the glances of other work-bound neighbors.

"No, no, no. It's supposed to be spring. Why are you back?" If I was my neighbor, I would avoid me. They probably all think, "There's that crazy girl talking to the geese."


Lila glanced at the geese, confused as to why I sounded upset. As we closed in on the geese, two soldier geese cried the alarm.

Lila LIKED the honks. She ran towards the geese with full speed. The soldier geese honked faster, wings flapping. Halfway towards the geese, Lila stopped dead in her tracks and went to the bathroom instead.

After she finished, she walked away from both the geese and myself as if she were too cool for school.

A soldier goose eyed Lila. When she was finally a safe distance away, he let out a honk which I interpreted as, "What just happened?"

I looked at the goose and shrugged. I too couldn't explain Lila's bizarre actions.

After leashing Lila and returning her to the apartment, I went off to work.

I returned from work expecting to see the field filled with geese, preparing for a winter storm.

Instead, I saw this -

This is a picture of approximately 25 ROBINS. To the right of this was another group of an additional 25 robins for a grand total of 50 ROBINS!


Um, what?

What happened to my weather geese? Were these the new spring weather robins?

Was there an EPIC BATTLE between geese and robins? The victor laying claim to the next months' weather?

OR have my weathergeese turned INTO springweatherrobins? 

Ok, realistically, I know the geese haven't morphed into these tiny, red-breasted birds. Yet still, a small, teeny tiny, eensy, weensy part of me thinks, "what if the very soldier goose I saw this morning is still on the field, tiny and less intimidating?"

No one is scared of a robin.

Am I now left to predict weather solely on the migratory pattern of birds?

Tuesday morning, I planned to greet my springweatherrobins, but instead laid eyes on an empty field. No geese, no robins.

"Oh well," I thought to myself. "They must have moved on."


Tuesday afternoon after returning from work, I made my way to the apartment. In the distance, I heard a noise. I glanced towards the fields on to be greeted by THE WEATHERGEESE! 


I bet you thought they were gone. NOPE! Apparently, the robins and geese are sharing custody of the fields. Neither of them likes the other, so they schedule their field time accordingly. 

Although, rather than the usual 50 weathergeese, only 10 showed up. So maybe they knew a small snow was on it's way.

As I made my way inside, I called out to the weathergeese, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME! What am I supposed to do? IS THIS A SIGN? WHAT DO YOU - Oh hey RayRay - I waved at him- I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!"

In case you were wondering, RayRay is my neighbor. He already knows I am crazy so I don't think he was even slightly phased by my outcry. 

I really don't know. Are they trying to send me a message? Am I supposed to interpret their presence as something more than just the weather? I don't know. Will I ever see the robins again? I don't know. What is it about my neighborhood that makes it THE place to be if you're a bird? I DON'T KNOW!

Thank goodness I took pictures. Each time I asked Joey if he saw the geese or robins on the field, he said he didn't know what I was talking about - there wasn't anything on the field. I AM NOT THIS CRAZY!

I think the weathergeese are trying to hold out with the last of winter while the weatherrobins are cheering on spring. If this is the case, GO SPRINGWEATHERROBINS! Weathergeese, I love you, but I am finished with this snow.

Point of the Story: Bring on the sunshine! I am ready for spring. Let's go SPRINGWEATHERROBINS! ....And hey to RayRay.

It's Finally Here - The Much Anticipated Blog!

I realized that I will tell one class a story and think I've told every student I teach the story. Then when I go to reference later, three-fourths of my students have no idea what I’m talking about.This has led me here to making a blog. This is where I will post stories I tell to different classes, ensuring we’re all on the same page.

Let’s begin –

The Story of Harry the Chicken (really, a rooster, but we'll get to that)

For our five year anniversary, I wanted to get Joey, my now fiance, back then my boyfriend, a great and different gift. Perusing the internet, I found a katana for sale. A katana is a Japanese Samari Sword. As a kid, Joey as most kids do, played sword fighting with sticks, "how much different could a sword be?" I thought to myself. 

Let's pause right there. This story appears to being going in the direction of severed limbs, accidentally chopping someone's arm off. Don't worry, we're not going anyone near there. Unpause.

This was perfect! The seller was in Pulaski, VA, a 45 minute drive from Virginia Tech. I emailed the seller, we agreed to meet outside a Wendy's. That's a good public location where if it turned out the seller was actually planning to stab me with the katana and then dump me in a ditch, I could instead, run inside the Wendy's, avoid the stabbing, and order a burger. Win-win.

I grabbed Lila, my 30 pound dog, but if my apartment complex asks, she is exactly 24.6 pounds, and not an ounce more, and we headed down to Pulaski. Driving down the highway, our three lanes turned into two lanes, and then into one lane. Driving down the lane, I looked on the shoulder to see a chicken hanging out. "What? Is that a chicken? What's a chicken doing on the side of the road" I said out loud. I then began to laugh because what if the chicken crossed the road? I never imagined that scenario being a real one, but at this very moment, a chicken was possibly about to answer everyone's favorite question. 

I continued driving imagining different reasons for chicken crossing and ultimately decided the chicken would cross if food was on the other side. I reached Wendy's and found the SUV matching the description in the email.

Side note: This is very dangerous to do alone. If you are meeting someone to make a purchase, always go with someone for safety and meet in a very public place. I lucked out and it turned out to be a nice woman, but you never know. 

The woman had explained in the email that the katana just sat around the house, doing absolutely nothing and she decided she'd rather make money off of it. I looked at the katana, not really sure what I was looking for as shockingly I am not a sword expert. The sword was shiny, was pointy, everything you could ever want from a sword.  

I paid the woman and drove back towards Blacksburg. On my way back, who did I run into again? The chicken! Naturally, I stopped to see the chicken. I even took pictures. 

I decided this chicken needed a name. Harriett seemed appropriate. 

As I was taking pictures of Harriett, Lila had her head out of the window of the car watching my movements. She then looked up to see Harriett. Lila had never before seen a creature as this. I imagine Lila's thoughts were along these lines - 

"What is Mom doing? WHAT IS THAT THING? Were those feathers on its body? Why did it walk so funny? I WANT THAT THING! I WILL GET THAT THING!" And with that, she jumped out the window and ran to Harriet. 

As I saw Lila darting full-speed towards the chicken, the sole thought going across my mind was a very calm, "oh no."

The chicken also saw this giant black ball of fur hurling towards it, the chicken began to move in what can best be described as a chicken run. First, its three toes spread apart, its legs lift one at at time, then move forward, followed by its body, yet its head stays back as if it missed the memo from the body that it needs to peace out. 

This is the start of the run, when its toes spread out and it lifts its legs. Off camera is Lila racing towards Harriett. After this picture, I dropped my phone as Harriett, the chicken raced paced me, followed by a thrilled Lila. 

Cars and trucks drove by to possibly the strangest sight they would see that day: me, chasing Lila, chasing the chicken. 

Two women in a van saw this fiasco and stopped to help. Unfortunately this just turned into two women chasing me, chasing Lila, chasing the chicken. 

Trucks honked their horn intrigued by the sight, cars slowed down to process the event. 

Lila caught up to Harriett and rolled her. A giant ball of feathers and dust flew up in the air as Harriett let out a cluck. Luckily, Lila has never been one to bite any animal she has trapped, including multiple squirrels, a groundhog, a bunny rabbit, and countless stray cats. She just wants to chase them, catch them, and stare at them excitedly. I think she also wants them to chase her. They just want to survive. 

Harriet saw the van and slipped under the van, where Lila couldn't reach. I used this opportunity to snatch Lila, put her in the car and close the windows to the point where they were opened just a crack. Lila went nuts running circles in the car. She wanted the feathery thing. 

Now the women were stuck. They couldn't drive off as the chicken had settled under their van. One woman called animal control, perhaps the professionals could handle this. That wasn't a good option in my opinion. 

Instead, I grabbed a sweatshirt and looked under the van. I placed the sweatshirt near the chicken to see if the chicken would attack the sweatshirt. Harriett didn't move. Clearly, Harriett was in a state of shock due to the recent events. 

In a bold and also possibly stupid move, I used the sweatshirt to wrap Harriett up and pulled her gently from underneath the car. 

As I held her in my arms, it dawned on me that this was a rooster, not a chicken. And Harriett turned into Harry. 

The rooster part is pretty obvious in this picture, but in my defense at the time, things were a little bit chaotic. 

Finally, animal control came. I carried Harry over to the Animal Control man. While walking, I didn't see a hole in the ground, and tripped. My ankle rolled, but I clutched tightly on to Harry. I hugged him goodbye as he was placed in a cage. 

A few days later, I called Animal Control. They informed me that Harry was re-homed in Pulaski on a farm. 

...And that is the story of how I broke my ankle. Didn't see that one coming, now did you?