Duck, Duck

It's a very strange winter this year in Minnesota- temperatures all over the place are confusing everyone.  I actually heard a flock of geese overhead during the past week.  Generally, they fly south in the fall and don't return until March.

Until I moved to Minnesota, I had only seen a Canadian Goose mounted on the wall of my GATE class; all the wild geese in California are white.  Sure, there are the white kinds with the   little noses and there are the geese with the big noses on their bills.  But either way, they were white.

When we first arrived in Minnesota, my mother, sister, and I went to a park for a picnic while my dad was at work.  We saw some real life Canadian Geese.  Now, like most Californians, we thought of geese as quite exotic creatures and had the rather strong motivation to feed the geese.  Of course, it's traditional to honk at the geese as you attempt to give them the stale bread in your hands.  We were shocked that they weren't mobbing us for the bread and we had to chase after them, so we needed to honk a little louder.  Then I realized the problem:

they were CANADIAN Geese!

to which my mother then looked at me and then said, "Honk, A", "Honk, A".

I'm ashamed to say that it actually got their attention.

But I guess they do have some white geese here, too, though they're not as common.  I guess this is the reason why the teachers in Minnesota decided to be "special" and change "Duck, Duck, Goose" to "Duck, Duck, Gray Duck".  (yes, it's "gray"- that's the color; "grey" is a familial name)

My husband and I are having this conversation on an on-going basis because my daughter WILL learn Duck, Duck, Goose, though he's in denial.  She will also learn about the mushpot, which I guess they didn't have here.  There seems to be no penalty at all for getting caught during Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.