Spring always brings many wonderful things, including our Canada geese, Ozzy and Sharon

THE ARMCHAIR MAYOR (COLUMN) — Spring is a contradiction. The thaw brings relief from the nastiness of winter. Temperatures become bearable.

On the other hand, spring is full of mud. Snow turns to rain. Skies are a gray swamp of roiling clouds.

And then the eagles come. They sit on the cottonwoods across the river, calling in their unmistakable ululating screech. Sometimes they come to sit in our own century-old cottonwood just behind the house. Just sit, and look.

The marmots woke up this week. Those goddamn marmots and their holes. I have to watch them all summer, putting in posts to keep the horses from breaking their legs in the pasture. Yet I feel protective of them, mourning every fatality out on the road.

We only name the ones in the colony closest to the house where I mow. Big Daddy and his harem.

Soon, the coyotes will come calling on the marmots and ground squirrels, helping Mother Nature’s population control.

Night before last, there were eight deer in the yard. I watched as one effortlessly hopped the fence and helped itself to a feast from the compost. The kale is trying to leaf up but I doubt it will last long. Deer love fresh kale.

Robins are back, too. For whatever reason, they fly up against the basement windows, leaving a stain of blood. I cover up the windows so they can’t see themselves but they do it anyway.

A gorgeous male pheasant has been strutting around the last couple of days.

Out on the river, the waterfowl are abundant — Mallards and ringed-necks and geese and Trumpeter swans, circling and landing in the back eddies. Sometimes, herons sit on the snags that have been overtaken by the thalweg.

At night, when Jess and I go out to check on The Boys, the geese are honking up and down the river, telling each other in the darkness where they are.

The Boys ignore them, concentrating on their evening snack of horse-vitamin pellets, but Jess barks out at the river to let everybody know who’s boss.

The real event of spring is when our own two Canada geese arrive to spend a few weeks nesting and having their babies. Every year, for the past four years or so, Ozzy and Sharon have taken over our acreage.

They spend much of their day just hanging out near the horses. They tend to move onto the river in evening. I have no idea where they nest but if I’m lucky, a little later I’ll see them paddling up and down the river near the shoreline with their gaggle of a half dozen goslings in tow.

It is a joyous sight. During daylight hours, when Jess and I go outside, the geese are inevitably there, and he gives them hell and does one of his pointless bluff charges, and I yell at him.

Ozzy and Sharon, of course, think I’m yelling at them, and they squawk and take off for the river, but over the course of a few days everybody gets into the routine. Jess remembers he’s not supposed to be mean to geese, and the geese remember they have nothing to fear.

When those geese first show up, it’s like a family reunion. I wait for them, and I worry that maybe this will be the year they don’t come. But this year, they’ve come, and I treasure them, even if they do crap all over the yard.

After they’ve had their babies, they’ll move on to wherever all geese go in spring, somewhere further north. They never stop in during their commute back south in the fall — I guess they’re in too much of a hurry.

But with a little luck and avoidance of the hunter’s shotgun, they’ll be back again next year, with the mud of spring. For now, it’s just nice to be able to visit with them once again.

AROUND THE TOWN — Good line from Mayor Peter Milobar during the Q&A following his speech at the chamber’s AGM Wednesday night. “Coun. (Ken) Christian wants to know who  your favourite councillor is!” wisecracked Coun. Tina Lange. “Unfortunately, she’s no longer on council,” said the mayor, referring of course, to Nancy Bepple who resigned this week… My jumper cables came in handy after the meeting when Coun. Marg Spina‘s car wouldn’t start… KPMG’s Brent Ashby made a brief appearance at yesterday’s TNRD meeting to present annual financial statements. There are many such visits this time of year… Got a call from local musician Willy Ward to catch up — he’s been at the Coast for awhile taking care of some family matters… Glad to see Gregg Drinnan has found a new home for his Christmas Cheer Fund at KTW. It’s too good a community cause to have lost…

armchairmayor@gmail.com