In case anyone is wondering where all the geese on the planet are pooping these days, it is a small pond in Ballentine, South Carolina. Of course, I am exaggerating. It isn’t all the geese on the planet pooping around my pond, just every migrating Canadian goose and their brother.

Somewhere in Canada there is a vacation guide for geese that says something on the order of: “Be sure to stop over at the Ballentine, South Carolina pond where you can relax in the tall grass, engage in loud, heated arguments with the resident geese for hours on end and deposit huge piles of excrement everywhere. Enjoy the antics of the pond owners as they try to weave their way around your leavings and don’t forget to join all your friends on the narrow pond dam to create an impenetrable manure barrier where no man crosses without having to clean their shoes.”

I imagine goose conversations going like this:

Goose One: “Have you pooped at the Ballentine pond yet?”

Goose Two: “Not yet, but my sister Gladys and my brother-in-law, Harold, did. The say it was the most wonderful experiences of their life.”

Goose One: “Mine, too. You should have seen the man who owns the place cuss when he stepped in one of Harold’s piles. It was priceless.”

Goose Two: “They say he’s a real clown. I can’t wait to get there to see him. I hope the pooping is as good as everyone says. I’ve been saving up for days.”

Based on the foul tonnage many of them generate it is hard to believe they could have gotten airborne with all that in them much less fly vast distances to get to my pond. If you didn’t know better, you’d think an incontinent grizzly bear was hanging around the pond instead of a bunch of twenty-pound geese. I am surprised some of them don’t just up and float away after they relieve themselves.

My friends suggest I let loose a few shotgun rounds into the pond to scare them off, but I can’t bring myself to do it. They may be the rudest guests on the planet, but I can’t bring myself to be mean to them. I have to turn the other cheek.

Besides, I have our resident geese to think about. I don’t want to scare them off. If I did, who else would build their nests on my pond dam thereby ensuring no one can fish off it for several months? Who else would show their appreciation for the pond, the grass, the fencing to keep out predators and all the other accommodations my wife and I afford to them by hissing at us savagely any time we walk within sixty feet of them?

You simply can’t disregard gratitude like that.

I guess being the Club Med for goose poopers is our lot in life for now. My wife adapts by wearing rubber boots. I use a lot of specially crafted language and terminology to cope with things.

As I write this there is a large flock of geese circling our pond. They will maintain this holding pattern for a few laps then they will land. After that, take my word for it, the holding will end.