Lucy is Gone (Alternate Title: Lucy Times 12)

I do not yet have a picture of Lucy so you get some pictures of my friends' chickens instead. Well, two chickens and one rooster.

I am not sure if you are going to ever get a picture of Lucy, because today when I went down to the Hudson River, she was gone! I was so disappointed, because I had gone to a wild bird seed shop -- a wild bird seed shop! -- to buy some feed for Lucy. I heard you were not supposed to feed them bread. And I did not want to kill Lucy, so it seemed maybe I should get her some other type of food. I read on the internet that you can feed them cracked corn. Wild birds do not eat grain normally but it is okay to supplement their diet with it.

I got a 5-pound bag of cracked corn for only $3.50! But I have not been able to get down to the river for more than a week, and I was feeling guilty and missing Lucy. So I went down there about 5:00 on Saturday. And she was nowhere to be seen. I did not even see my duck friends. I was going to go back but there was a couple having sex in a nearby car (I'm not kidding) and I did not feel like walking by them, so I sat on the dock and waited for Lucy. I waited a while. I threw some corn in the river and saw it does not swim (as Fredi says) but sinks. Oh well.

I wondered if Lucy had found her flock (not likely) or died in the severe storm we had Thursday night(hopefully not likely) or run off with the duck husband (very unlikely) or just left for fairer pastures, so to speak. I guess I will never know.

I saw the duck husband, or a male duck, floating off in the distance by himself. I wondered, "Did Lucy eat the female duck and then die of bloat?"

Oh sorry but you know I do have an active imagination. But after I saw the male duck I looked further out into the river and I saw two duck families with their babies! They were swimming upstream and then headed toward the bay. At least I would get treated to some duck babies. As they got closer I realized through the dusk light that they were goose families! I threw some corn out into the river, forgetting that is doesn't "swim."

Then I walked quickly down near the beach. The goose families kept coming. There were two sets of parents with four babies each. As they got close to the shore one of the parents hissed at me. I sat down to make myself smaller and cautiously throw some corn over the fence onto the beach. I was rewarded when the baby geese (goslings?) came closer and began nibbling away at the corn. They were adorable. They looked like baby ducks, all yellow and fuzzy, but bigger. Not that I have seen many baby ducks, but I would imagine they are not as big as these goslings.

They peeped away -- such a cute sound! The parents were wary of me and hissed some but they got used to me. After a while some fought with each other. I reveled in watching these geese for quite some time. Then I wondered if maybe one of the geese was Lucy. Or Lucas I suppose his name would be, because maybe he was a male goose looking out for his wife while she was nesting. I am not sure if this is true, because Lucy sure seemed to spend a lot of time alone. But I would like to believe one of them is she.

After a while a man and a woman came with their little white dog to the beach. The goose families were scared away but came back after a bit. Later on an older man I've met at the beach before came by. We talked -- or he talked and I listened, because he is quite hard of hearing and I think he hardly heard a word I said. I'm not sure if he had seen me feeding the geese, but he mentioned the millionaires in the new housing development might not like these geese, well, pooping on their property, and it might be a problem if people are feeding them a lot. But right now I don't care. I found Lucy times 12!

Next time I got to bring the camera.