Gone

On Tuesday night Charlie and I rousted the huge flock of geese that have gathered on the hill. Going out for our last walk of the day in the near dark at eight, we didn’t expect to see them, because they’re usually down at the pond by that hour. But they were quite close to the house – also a little unusual, and they took off flying towards the pond with a great honking as soon as we stepped outside. It was a surprising encounter, and the flock seemed even larger than usual, though it was hard to tell in the poor light.

Wednesday was cool, rainy and very windy, so I wasn’t surprised not to see the geese on the hill. Today, a perfectly beautiful day, there was no reason for them to be absent, but there was not a goose in sight. They are gone and I already miss them. They have been a lovely part of the spring and summer days; a pleasure to watch the goslings grow, a pleasure to hear them honking a soft warning about Charlie and me, a pleasure to watch the adults shepherd the goslings away, a pleasure to look out the window and watch the flock foraging. Gone for the winter. Their absence confirms the changing season and pulls my thoughts right through the fall and winter towards the spring when they will be back.

The tourists are mostly gone too, with Dreams Park over just before Labor Day, and with east coast kids back at school. I was on Main Street in Cooperstown today and a few older couples were strolling to or from the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they had no children or grandchildren in tow, and there was plenty of parking right across the street in front of the Post Office. There was an email reminder today that the Farmer’s Market hours will change this weekend, opening an hour later than during the summer. They open at eight during the summer, giving locals an hour to shop before they have to pay for parking, and a chance to get in and out before the tourists arrive. Of course, we are grateful for the excellent impact they have on the economy, and as tourists go, Cooperstown tourists are mostly well behaved and not unpleasant. But I will certainly miss the geese a lot more that I will miss the tourists, even though the geese have left a carpet of poop behind and did nothing for the economy.

Every day a few more trees have started turning, their chlorophyll gone. We see flocks of turkeys with chicks almost adult sized. The turkeys had mostly stayed hidden over the summer, and if we did see one, it was almost always alone. I assume the flock separates during the summer and lays low while they are raising their chicks. But now they’ve come back together, perhaps for added safety during the hungry months ahead. The pair of herons that have nested out of sight all summer have been more visible too the last few days. I had seen one or the other of them taking off or landing near the pond once in a while through the summer. But this week I’ve seen the pair flying together several times. My guess is they’ll be gone soon. The fireflies are long gone, with the bluebirds, the redwing blackbirds, the bobolinks, the gold finches, and the kingbirds. There are still a few swallows in the barn, but probably not for long. A huge flock of starlings showed up a few days ago, but they are gone now too. The crows are sticking around, and they’re making a lot more noise than they did all summer. I wonder if they’re calling back and forth about the departures of all the tourist birds.

This afternoon Jay got a call from his brother Ronald telling him that their oldest brother, Dick, was gone at 90. Dick was Jay’s half brother, and with the 20 years age difference and the fact that they always lived at some distance from each other, they hardly knew each other, so it’s an odd loss. I met Dick at a family reunion in 2012, and that’s the last time we saw him. But gone is different. The family structure has changed, with only Jay’s sister Nancy and his brothers Ronald and Skip surviving – with Bob, Jim, and now Dick gone. Our families ebb and flow with deaths and births. Unlike the geese, Dick will not be back.