Scooby, my Jack Russell Terrier, and I were on our morning walk.  We were on a path in an undeveloped area and we were startled to see three deer running flat out toward us.  The deer looked up to see us and stopped.  Then, they casually sauntered away.

Whatever was chasing the deer was a lot scarier than one overweight, middle-aged mother of two and a little dog.  It was a stark reminder of where we were on the food chain, that is, parallel to a trio of deer.

We walked on and while we saw several rather large paw prints, we never saw the big cat I assumed was watching us.  Apparently, we were not worth the trouble.

I guess I could see the cat’s point of view.  Scooby does not have much more nutrition on the bone than an Oreo and I, well; I have a lot of cream filling.  When you hear of people describing their body shapes as apples or pears, I fall into the category of potato.

But more important than our cameo appearance in the world of nature was the fact that the predators were moving down from the mountains.  Mt. Bachelor and Timberline got their first snow fall earlier this week and the morning temperatures have been around 30 degrees.

That means the bugs are dying.  Hooray!

But it also means the geese are airborne putting us all at great risk of grave bodily harm.

Central Oregon is home to just loads and loads of Canadian geese.  They can be a real problem and every year you hear calls of how to “control” their population.  This is followed by a virtual uproar from the Geese Protection Society and Feather Swap (motto: honk!) and it gives everyone a chance to take a break from contentious town hall meetings on health care reform and instead focus on hating thy neighbors on an individual basis.

I don’t know what geese eat but based on the appearance of every shoreline in the Central Oregon area, I would assume it is bran muffins by the ton with Metamucil chasers.  The locals love to hide behind trees and watch the tourists attempt to navigate the park areas in their expensive touristy shoes.  We take bets on how fast smug vegetarians and PETA members will suddenly be overwhelmed by the mad desire to eat raw goose meat.  It doesn’t take long.

During the warmer months, the geese swim in the Deschutes River leaving God knows what in the water and it’s a real wonder we don’t have more mutant fish around here.  At cooler times of the day they stand around in large crowds like they’re waiting to hear their raffle numbers announced.  They just stand there and you have to wonder why. 

I have to think the main thing they are doing is pondering which targets to attack once the autumn season arrives.  When these downy poop machines take flight, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves.

We know what they leave on the ground.  It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out when those projectiles are dropped from a great height, the results could be deadly.

That’s why we should dispatch these geese to Afghanistan. 

I think this would be a lot easier than my previous idea of teaching pigs how to hang glide.  I know the pigs would work well because of the Islamic pork ban and one can only assume how they would treat piggy poo bombs.  But geese don’t need the expense and hassle of hang gliders AND a lot of them around here are actually bigger than pigs.  One can only assume their product would also be larger, too.

I don’t know for sure but I don’t believe the Geneva Conventions even address Weapons of Icky Destruction.