Stormy

We had terrible storms on Monday night.
The power flickered and they were loud.
So very loud.

Fiona starting shaking in early afternoon so that by the time the storms hit, she was in my closet. Hiding and still shaking.

The storms were so loud at one point during the night that I woke up bolt upright, certain that lightning had struck the house. I walked all over the house to check every room while Chris and Wren slept soundly.
I hate it when that happens.

If Spencer had been home, he would have woken up too, but Chris and Wren sleep like the dead.
It's not fair.

The next morning, we looked out to see that the lake covered half of the yard and Mallards were swimming in what used to be grass. Later, Wren told us that it took five hours for the lake to recede but even then it looked like it might spill over the retaining wall at any moment.

Tuesday evening, when we got home from work, there were geese in the yard. That's not unusual, but this time there were whole families of geese, several whole families. And they were all enjoying the feast the lake had left behind, pecking away and keeping one eye on their goslings and the other eye on every one else.

It was kind of like being at a goose version of the mall. There were varying ages of goslings from sort of teenaged geese to much younger ones and all of them were there with their parents who were constantly fussing about what the goslings were eating, who they were hanging out with, and where they had wandered off to. There were at least thirty geese in the yard.
It was a goose parent's nightmare.

We've all enjoyed watching the various stages of goose development, especially Wren.

"Look over there, Mom!" Wren said, "Those babies are getting tail feathers just like their parents!"
"It's nice how long they stay with their parents," I said.
"I know she said," she said. And she smiled when she said it.
It was a pretty great mother-daughter moment.

Of course, I'm not wishing my tail feathers on anybody.