Geese gotta fly

As the year rolls past the equinox in this part of the world, you may hear a peculiar sound like someone cleaning a window. That's your clue to look up and see the lop-sided "V" of Canada geese heading south.

Each morning the long bus-ride to younger daughter's school takes us past the southern edge of the enormous Experimental Farm that sits near the centre of the Ottawa-Carlton area. These days, the fields are filled with breakfasting geese. As we passed a huge flock this morning, two geese flew in graceful figure eights above, and, as if there had been a signal, several dozen suddenly took off to join them. They seemed to circle wildly; one geese nosed up like a jet plane, realized he was alone and swung back. The bus proceeded down Baseline before we could see if the "V" emerged.

Another sign of the equinox is that the sun rises directly in line with our kitchen window and sets opposite our living room window, revealing how long it's been since I washed the windows. Probably since the last equinox. But having the sun lined up perfectly east-west also guides me in which direction to gaze today. Eldest daughter left at the crack of dawn for a school trip to New York City. I spent the afternoon tracking the progress of her bus on the Google maps, and this evening, I searched out web-cams of Broadway and pictures of Ellen's Stardust Diner where her group had dinner tonight before trotting off to the Gershwin Theatre to see Wicked, the perfect musical for adolescent and just-post-adolescent girls. She gets to see two more Broadway shows, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a host of other things before returning late Sunday. I try to content myself with gazing out from interminable bus-rides at the unusually lush Green Belt this early autumn coming after a wet summer. Oh, if I had wings...