They're so cute, when they're young

The "scenic" route I bike to get to work is actually quite pretty. First I pass by Miller Park and then through the Menomonee Valley. Back in the pre-European days, the valley was a wild rice marsh. But then all that changed, and by the 1800s, the marsh was filled and the valley was flooded with manufacturing and industry instead.

In the 1950-70s, a series of events (highway construction, deindustrialization) left the Valley a shadow of any image of what it had been in the past - besides the abandoned buildings, sand, salt and coal were stored there, in not the most planet-friendly methods.

1990's started initiatives to rehabilitate the area, and now the valley is a much more attractive area, not just aesthetically (with large park/grasslands) but also to businesses. It's quite a remarkably delightful juxtaposition of a river that is regularly filled with fishermen, industrial park headquarters (including Palermo's Pizza - smelling that on the way to work is torture), geese, ducks, bike commuters, Brewers game tailgaters, University sport fields, ROTC training and a Vegas-esque (only on the outside) casino. I'm tremendously lucky to be able to access it on my commute.

Well, back to the photo, every spring it's always a delight to see the small clusters of young goslings that hatch and grace the ponds and grassways with their little puff-ball presence. So adorable.

I cannot say the same for their adult counterparts, but you gotta take the good with the bad, I guess. Sometimes seeing the baby geese almost makes up for the other 5 months of the year dodging goosepoo on the trail, and being hissed at by geese who are irate at the thought that they should dare be expected to move out of the way when they were on the path in the first place! Fortunately all I have to do is hear their hisses as I zip by them. I ring my bell back at them in a futile attempt to get the last word in.