LiveJournal 3/30/2003 –

Man alive is it chilly out there! I just got back from doing something I haven’t done in a long, long time – went down to the park and fed the ducks. However there bears a correction in that I wasn’t absolutely surrounded by just ducks but rather some geese and a cadre of very bedraggled squirrels who weren’t sure I was actually feeding them or throwing dirt at them, dumb squirrels. So I went down to the edge of the parks pond/lake and immediately when I rustled the plastic Meijer bag it was like someone rang the dinner bell, I was approached very cautiously by ducks, geese, and perhaps a gosling – I couldn’t be sure. The law of supply and demand at work was fascinating to see, drop a entire slice of bread in the water and immediately female ducks paddle over, quacking the whole time, taking nips from the males and even challenging the geese – these are some ballsy ladies. I of course as a human had to throw the entire shebang off it’s balance point by flooding the “market” with supply, even the most sickly looking male got at least a nibble. I was down to half of what I came with and I walked over to this very short concrete pier and I heard this chittering sound, turn, look down, see one very audacious squirrel just sitting on his haunches staring up at me with his hands out – it was so endearing! I put my hand in the bag and the little squirrel started to move off nervously until I brought out a huge chunk of whole-wheat hamburger bun, I tossed the entire bun right in front of the squirrel and he made this happy little squealing noise, grabbed the bun which was nearly as big as the squirrel and started munching away. I left with nearly half of what I came with and decided to save the rest for some warmer day when I can gather a bigger group of avian guests. There is this wonderful feeling from knowing that one single act, tossing stale worthless bread to the wildlife, could possibly keep a few of them alive and that it was a vastly superior thing than simply tossing the bread in the trash to rot.